“The short version, if you please,” Flint warned him. “I don’t want to be sitting here, listening to your tale, when the others return five years from now.”
Tasslehoff rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Flint. I’ve never told you a five-year story. Not that I don’t know a few.…
“Now,” he continued as if uninterrupted, “Uncle Trapspringer and his bride decided they didn’t want to go just any old place for their honeymoon, so that’s exactly where they went. Or tried to, anyway.”
As usual, Tas was proving obtuse. “Where did they go?” Flint asked, feigning patience. He was sorry almost the second the words left his mouth.
Tas looked exasperated. “Really, Flint, you’re not listening. Where else would you go on your honeymoon but the moon, of course? That’s the point!”
Tanis’s eyes narrowed. “They went to the moon?”
“No,” Tas corrected him, “but they sure tried to. They bought a magical potion at the Spring Faire in Kendermore. They both drank half, closed their eyes, and thought about the moon, just like the salesman told them to. But when Uncle Trapspringer opened his eyes, he was still at the faire and his bride was gone! Her wedding dress was in a heap next to him on the ground.” Tas’s eyes misted over. “Golly, that story always makes me sad. Do you suppose he just didn’t think about the moon hard enough?”
“He didn’t think hard enough all right, but not about the moon,” snorted Flint as he shook a handful of wood shavings from his beard. “She probably knew what she was getting into and ran off while his eyes were closed, before it was too late. Surprising insight, for a kender.”
“Uncle Trapspringer says she must be dead,” Tas said, “because if she weren’t she would have found a way back to him by now. But I think she’s on Lunitari right this minute. I bet she’s awfully lonely. I wonder what we look like from up there?”
“At least she won’t be going hungry,” said Flint. “Everyone knows that the moon is made of red cheese!” He forced the smile from his twitching face.
“I’m not so sure,” Tas said soberly. “I don’t know what Lunitari is made of, but red cheese is most unlikely. Red something, I’ll wager, but nothing so mundane or squishy as cheese—”
Flint burst into a loud guffaw.
Tas’s monologue was cut short when the heavy, oak door at the entrance to the inn blew open and slammed against the wall with a bang, sending early autumn leaves swirling through the taproom. Through the doorway stepped the most unusually vivid creature any of the three companions had ever seen. The woman, a dwarf judging by the squatty proportions of her body, was incredibly voluptuous by that same standard. A silky, raspberry-colored blouse that gathered at the wrists was stretched tight across her sizable bosom, straining the criss-crossed front laces. Below it, a canary yellow braided leather belt cinched in her waspish waist. Her pants, made of skin-tight purple leather, were tucked into leather boots that matched perfectly the color of her blouse. Her lips and cheeks glowed with the same impossibly brilliant, unnatural shade of pomegranate as her long, wavy hair. Perched upon it at a jaunty angle was a small, plumed purple and yellow hat.
“At last, we’re here,” she sighed contentedly, looking around the inn. Hands on her hips, she struck an imperious pose that made her appear taller than she was. The inn fell silent. Even the pans in the kitchen stopped rattling. “Woodrow, come in here!” she called as an afterthought over her shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am,” croaked a nervous voice. A young man stepped from behind her, carefully squeezing around her bulk so as not to intrude on her magnificence. His sun-bleached hair looked like straw that had been cut with a bowl around his head. His nose was hawkish and strong, as was his tall, sinewy frame. He was dressed, oddly, in gray, quilted cotton pants and a long-sleeved, padded shirt of a type commonly worn as protection under chain mail. His pants, obviously past their prime, were torn at the seams and faded. The young man’s wrists dangled more than an inch below the cuffs.
“Do stop calling me ma’am,” she chided him good-naturedly. “You make me feel so old. And let me assure you,” she continued, giving him a seductive wink, “I’m not that old yet!”
The young man named Woodrow blushed furiously. “Yes, ma’am,” he gulped.
She looked at him for a long moment and touched his cheek briefly. “So young … but I like them young.…” She looked away abruptly and peered into the depths of the inn, spotting Otik behind the bar in his apron.
“Yoo-hoo!” she called, fluttering her hands in his direction. His eyes transfixed, Otik scurried to her side. “A man so important-looking and dignified as you must be the barkeep,” she purred.
Otik’s stout body jiggled to a stop, and he grinned like a lovesick fool. “Uh, yes, I guess I am. Can I be of some assistance? A room, perhaps? Dinner? Our food is the best in Solace—all of southern Ansalon!” he blathered.
“I’m sure it is,” she said smoothly, “but perhaps later. Actually, I’m looking for someone. A kender named Tasslehoff Burrfoot. I was told I might find him here.”
The three companions had been watching the whole display. At the sound of his name, Tasslehoff jumped excitedly to his feet and raced up to her. “That’s me! I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot! Did I win something? Are you here to give me my prize?” He paused for a new thought. “Or did I lose something? Did you lose something?”
“You could say that,” the voluptuous dwarf said, running her gaze over his childlike form. “Can’t say I understand what all the fuss is about,” she muttered mysteriously, then latched her surprisingly strong fingers around his bony wrist.
“You’ll have to come with me now, and I’m in a bit of a hurry,” she said, stepping toward the door. Not quite sure what was happening, Tasslehoff draped behind her like dead weight. He dug his heels into the floor. “Well, come along,” she chided, “I haven’t got all year.” With that she tugged him toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” he blurted. “Who are you? Where are you trying to take me? You’re not at all polite.” The dwarf’s outburst brought Tanis and Flint to their feet, and they began making their way to Tas’s side.
The stranger seemed to recollect something. “Oops, sorry. I forgot that part.” She adopted an officious tone. “Tasslehoff Burrfoot, you’re under arrest for violating section thirty-one-nineteen, code forty-seven, paragraph ten, sub-paragraph something or other, of the Kender Code of Conduct.” She gave Tasslehoff’s wrist a sharp yank, leaning toward the door.
“That certainly sounds serious,” Tas agreed grimly, keeping his heels planted. “What does it mean?”
“It means you broke your marriage oath. You’re in big trouble, Burrhead.”
PART I
Chapter 1
“Oh, that!” exclaimed Tas, dismissing concern with a wave of his hand. “I forgot all about it.”
“Obviously. However, the Kendermore Council didn’t. Now, stop stalling!” the brightly clad dwarf complained, giving the kender’s wrist another sharp tug. Tas dug the fingers of his free hand into the edge of a heavy table and refused to budge.
The red-haired dwarf stopped and turned around to face him. “I don’t want to do this, but you’re really giving me no choice. Woodrow, pick him up and carry him.” But the blond young man took only one step before Tanis’s voice halted him.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, boy.” Stepping forward with his fists clenched before him, the powerfully muscled half-elf looked as if he outweighed Woodrow by at least fifty pounds. Standing next to Tanis, Flint’s face was grim and his hand rested reflexively on the hammer that always hung at his thick waist.
“What’s this all about, Tas?” Tanis asked in his sternest voice.
“I’d like the answer to that as well,” Otik demanded, focusing his irritation at the kender. “You’re disturbing the peace of my inn.” He looked at his kitchen staff, including his daughter Tika, all of whom had gathered around the bar to see what was happening.
Tas stopped his struggling. �
�I think this lady wants me to go back to Kendermore and get married,” he said, avoiding his friends’ eyes.
“To her?” Flint asked, his brows raised in amazement.
“Don’t be insulting!” the female dwarf cried, drawing back.
“Of course not, Flint,” Tas sniffed. “She’s not even a kender.”
“Look,” Tanis said impatiently. “Would somebody tell us what’s going on?” He gazed directly at the unusually vivid-looking dwarf. “Who are you, and what’s the real reason you want Tasslehoff?”
The woman regarded Tanis’s handsome face with interest. Suddenly she thrust out her hand, palm down, and said sweetly, “My name is Gisella Hornslager. Yours?”
“Tanis Half-Elven,” he responded, awkwardly returning the woman’s crushing handshake.
Gisella withdrew her hand. “As I was saying, Buzzfoot is under arrest for breaking a marriage oath according to some kender law or another,” she said vaguely. “Now, as much as I’d like to stay and chat,” she continued, letting her gaze wander down Tanis’s lean form, a smirk on her lips, “I really must be going. Schedules to keep, places to be, you know how it is.”
Flint, who had been quite obviously staring at the woman since her arrival, gulped in surprise. “You’re a bounty hunter?”
“Oh, not specifically,” she said, spinning on her heel. “I’m in the import-export business; my motto is ‘You want it, I got it.’ The Kendermore Council asked me to do this job, and I thought ‘fabric, a kender—what’s the difference as long as it’s portable?’ ”
She lifted her broad, raspberry-colored shoulders in a weary shrug. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really must be going. I’ve got two bags of rare merganser melon out in my wagon getting riper and costing me more money every second I delay. Kendermore’s Autumn Harvest Faire opens in a little more than a month, and that load is worth a half-year’s profits to me there. Woodrow?”
The young man stepped forward obediently and wrapped his strong arms around the wriggling kender. “Sorry, little fella,” he mumbled.
Tanis stopped Woodrow again, this time with a hand on his arm. The kender slid to his feet once more, twisting his vest back into place with a disgruntled “humph!”
Gisella pulled Tanis to the side, batting two small, kohl black-lined eyes at him. “Look, friend, if it’s money you want, I’ll give you half of my take for him. Fifteen new steel pieces,” she said, biting into each word as though she enjoyed their taste.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Tanis sputtered, unable to comprehend that someone was trying to buy Tasslehoff from him.
“That’s more than fair!” She dropped her voice abruptly. “OK, twenty, but that’s my final offer.”
“My good woman,” Tanis growled, his eyes flashing black, “you cannot buy and sell a kender like horseflesh!”
“You can’t? Why not?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“Because some things just aren’t for sale!”
“Honey,” she purred, letting her tightly clothed thigh rub against his for a moment, “everything has a price.”
Tanis jerked his leg away and took a deep breath, throwing a withering look at Flint, who was jiggling with silent laughter. Groping for a new approach, Tanis suggested, “Let’s ask Tas what he wants to do.”
Everyone turned toward the kender. “Well, Tas?” Tanis asked. “What’s this about getting married, anyway? You never even told us you had a sweetheart.”
Tasslehoff shuffled uncomfortably. “I don’t, exactly,” he confessed. “See, a long time ago, somebody suddenly noticed that there weren’t many kender left in Kendermore—people just never got around to getting married. So some other somebody came up with the idea of randomly assigning mates at birth. You know, a boy and a girl are born near each other timewise in the city, and they have to get married sometime near their thirty-fifth birthdays. It’s one of the few rules that any kender can remember. Except me. I just forgot it.”
“So there’s a girl waiting in Kendermore for you to marry her?” Flint asked, struggling to keep the smile he felt growing inside him from showing on his face.
“I guess,” Tas said morosely. “I’ve never met her. I think her name begins with a ‘D,’ or at least it sounds like ‘D.’ Dorcas … Dipilfis … Gimrod … Something like that.”
Flint could contain himself no longer; he burst out laughing. “I’d like to see the look on her face when she sees what she’s getting! Ha!”
“Tas,” Tanis said kindly, looking into the kender’s crestfallen face, “do you want to marry this girl?”
Tas pursed his lips in thought, watching leaves swirl in Tika’s wake as she marched by with a tray of drinks. “I’ve never thought about it, really. I always figured I’d get married someday … someday later … much later.”
“If you don’t want to marry her, the honorable thing to do is to go back and tell her so,” Tanis suggested reasonably. “Or send a message through Miss Hornslager here. I’m sure the girl will understand.”
Tas brightened slightly. “I suppose I could do that.”
“Well, let me just tell you that Miss Hornslager won’t understand,” Gisella grumbled. “I get paid for delivering a kender, not a message. Bundle him up, Woodrow,” she instructed abruptly.
“You don’t need to treat me like a sack of potatoes,” Tas pointed out, his face dark.
“I don’t know,” Flint said mischievously, a twinkle in his eye. He was enjoying Tas’s discomfort immensely. “I’d keep my eyes on him every minute. He may intend to return with you today, but a butterfly might cross his path tomorrow, and off he’ll go.”
Gisella looked directly at Tas and clicked her tongue. “Any old time you think about wandering off, just remember this: The council is holding your Uncle Trapspringer prisoner until you return. They want you back real bad.”
“Prisoner? Poor Uncle Trapspringer!” Tas cried. Suddenly his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait a minute, how do I know they really have my Uncle Trapspringer?”
Gisella’s cheeks colored for the first time. She scratched the back of her neck, looking uncomfortable. “Well, it wasn’t my idea, but they told me to show you something if you gave me any trouble.” She pulled a tiny pouch from the depths of her blouse and tugged open the strings. Wrinkling her nose, she held up a two-inch, jointed piece of polished white bone. “Here’s his finger!”
Tas peered at the fragment closely. “Yep, that’s Uncle Trapspringer’s favorite one,” he said, unperturbed. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
Tanis’s face wrinkled in horror. “They cut off your uncle’s finger? But why would they do that over such a small matter?”
“I thought it was unusually nasty, myself,” Gisella agreed, dropping the bone back into the pouch.
Tasslehoff’s expression turned from confusion to sudden amusement. “You thought this was one of his fingers? Oh, that’s funny!”
“Well, that’s what you said it was, you doorknob,” Flint growled, shuffling his feet angrily. Tanis looked merely bewildered.
“Oh, that’s really funny!” Tasslehoff shrieked. He clutched his stomach and doubled over with high-pitched laughter, oblivious to the irritation of his friends. “Uncle Trapspringer collects bones,” he gulped—“of animals and such,” he managed to gasp at last. “That’s the one he carries for good luck!”
“Obviously it’s not working,” observed Gisella dryly, tucking the purse back into her blouse.
Tanis sighed heavily. “I should have known better than to try helping you out of a jam, Tas. I give up; you’re on your own.” The half-elf shook Tas’s small hand and backed out the door. “Good luck, friend. See you in five years.”
Chuckling aloud, Flint stepped after the young half-elf. “Have a nice wedding, Tas!” he said, clapping the kender affectionately on the shoulder as he passed him.
“Wait!” Tas called. “Of course I’m terribly concerned about Uncle Trapspringer—” But his friends were already gone. Tasslehoff t
ook a step after them, but Gisella and Woodrow blocked his way. Feeling just the tiniest bit forlorn, he chewed his lip and looked expectantly at the red-haired dwarf.
Gisella Hornslager arched her eyebrows in a hopeful gesture. “Well, that’s that, hmm? Those melons aren’t getting any greener.”
Tasslehoff hesitated.
Just then, Otik emerged from the kitchen, carrying a parchment sack. “I, uh, just wanted you to have something to remember your trip to Solace,” he said shyly, placing the sack in the dwarf’s outstretched hands. Then he wiped his own greasy ones on the front of his apron.
Gisella flashed the tubby barkeep a brilliant smile. “You wonderful, thoughtful little man!” she cooed, planting a red-lipped kiss on his plump, blushing cheek. Behind him, Tika crossed her arms in disgust, a baleful glare on her young face.
“Well, Burrfoot, are you going to come with us easily,” Gisella began, her arms crossed in challenge, “or is Woodrow going to have to carry you?”
Tasslehoff thought about his uncle locked up somewhere because of him, and he realized there was no choice to be made. “I’ll go easily,” he said. “Just let me get my things.”
“Fine. Ta-ta!” Gisella called grandly to Otik, sweeping out through the open door. Under Woodrow’s watchful eye, Tas hurried back to the table he’d shared with his friends and snatched up his hoopak, the fork-shaped, slinglike weapon no kender would be without. Waving good-bye to the preening Otik and scowling Tika, Tas followed Gisella down the bridgewalk that spiraled around the trunk of the inn’s supporting vallenwood tree.
“Wow, what a wagon!” Tas breathed, catching sight of a large, enclosed, wooden wagon hitched at the base of the tree. The roof was arched instead of flat, showing intricate carving and workmanship. Even the wheels looked expensive: thick, with wrought iron spokes. Painted on the side in bright red were the words: “Mr. Hornslager’s Hypermarket: You Want It, I Got It.”
Kendermore Page 2
