Kendermore

by Mary Kirchoff

  The damp, musty-smelling passage poured out into a round, cluttered room, old but apparently still sound. A stairway zigzagged upward on one side of the room. With a grunt, the ogre dropped his burdens to the floor.

  Dazed by the wild ride and by the fading effect of the grove’s enchantment, the two kender sat on the uneven, sandy floor, recovering their wits. In the flickering torchlight, Trapspringer saw a crude table consisting of a large board laid over two equally large boulders. Sitting on the table—or tied to it, actually—was Phineas Curick. The human’s head slumped onto his chest. The little halo of hair that nature had left him at the base of his skull stuck out wildly now. There were scratches on his face and hands, but otherwise the human looked unscathed.

  “What have you done to him?” Trapspringer asked, inclining his head toward Phineas.

  The ogre drew back as if insulted. “Aw, I barely nicked him. He was flailing about so much that I had to tie him down to keep him from hurting himself.” He poked the human, and Phineas groaned. “He’ll be OK.”

  “Wait a minute! How come you can speak the Common tongue?” Damaris demanded.

  The ogre rolled its big, baggy eyes. “I should know by now not to expect simple courtesy from kender.” He heaved a deep sigh, blowing a puff of foul air through the gaps between his teeth, and shook his head sadly. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? My name is Vinsint. Who might you be?”

  Damaris and Trapspringer looked at each other in disbelief. A polite, articulate ogre? This was very interesting indeed.

  Trapspringer’s hand disappeared in the ogre’s meaty palm. “Trapspringer Furrfoot, at your service,” he said politely. He gestured toward the other kender. “And this is Damaris Metwinger.”

  The ogre took her tiny hand. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said and giggled, sounding like someone choking on a fish bone. “Get it? ‘Charmed’? You just came from the enchanted grove!” His mirth turned to frustration. “Never mind. That one always passes right over kender.”

  Vinsint moved away and busied himself among some crates. “Will smoked fish, baby carrots, and bread pudding be acceptable for dinner?” he asked over his shoulder. “Oops, sorry, I’m out of bread pudding. How about fresh, roasted apples instead?”

  Trapspringer’s mouth watered, but he was a bit worried about Phineas.

  “While that sounds delicious, Vinsint,” the gray-haired kender said, “my friends and I really must be going.” Trapspringer stood, taking Damaris’s hand, and headed for Phineas’s unconscious form on the table. “Thank you very much for rescuing us from the grove. We’ll be sure to tell all our friends about it.”

  “Sit down!” the ogre roared, poking Trapspringer in the chest and knocking him to the ground. Damaris tumbled down next to him.

  Trapspringer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.

  “You’re going to stay here and keep me company until I say otherwise!” Vinsint thundered, standing above them with his legs spread wide, his massive, muscled arms crossed.

  Phineas stirred on the table, choosing that unfortunate moment to awaken. Expecting that there would be a scene, Trapspringer almost wished he had something heavy he could use to put Phineas back to sleep. As it turned out, he did not need it anyway.

  Phineas moaned, squirmed and twisted until he was sitting upright on the table, and opened his eyes. He looked at his own bound hands and feet, at Trapspringer and Damaris, and then squarely at Vinsint, standing to his full height with his arms folded and the veins in his neck bulging. Phineas opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again as if he had thought better of it. Without making a sound, Phineas’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed back onto his side in a dead faint.

  Chapter 15

  Woodrow watched the animated dragon stretch its wings below the kender. “That thing will take Mr. Burrfoot over my dead body,” he announced unconsciously. He wished he’d chosen other words as he sprang forward, the centaur obligingly ducking its head. The straw-haired man flailed desperately at the dragon’s swishing tail. Rough scales and pointy horns slashed and scraped at his exposed flesh but he held on, thinking only that if he lost the kender, Miss Hornslager would be furious.

  The dragon seemed to grow larger as it flapped its mighty wings and rose higher. Moments later, when Woodrow came to his senses, it was far too late to think about jumping off. He clung with all his might to the thrashing, flicking, mighty tail.

  Tasslehoff, meanwhile, had already overcome his initial shock and was sitting upright in the saddle. He happily bounced and kicked with his heels as the dragon climbed into the morning sun. Suddenly, the creature lurched and the wings stopped flapping. Its climb leveled out and the beast nosed to the left and began to dive furiously back toward the carnival. Tasslehoff squealed and Woodrow shrieked as the wind screamed past their ears. Tas’s long hair whipped into Woodrow’s face, and probably would have obscured his vision if Woodrow’s eyes had been open. If anything, Woodrow’s eyes were shut tighter than his grip on the dragon’s tail.

  Faster and faster they dove, straight down toward the carousel. Dwarves scattered in every direction as the terrifying beast plummeted toward them. At the last moment, the dragon pulled out of its dive and raced across the green, raising a cloud of leaves and dust in its wake.

  Tasslehoff had spotted the tiny gnome dancing a jig near his controls. “I guess it’s working the way it’s supposed to,” he hollered to no one in particular. Mere inches from the ground, the dragon expanded its wings and pulled up into a nearly vertical climb. Tasslehoff threw his arms around the saddle to keep from falling off backward.

  The piercing scream from behind alerted Tas that he was not alone on the wild ride. Twisting in the saddle, he saw Woodrow, white as an elven shroud, wrapped around the dragon’s tail. Directly behind Woodrow was the ground, receding at an alarming rate, and Gisella, shaking a finger at the gnome. “Woodrow! What are you doing here?” bellowed Tas. “Hey, Gisella looks much smaller from way up here! Isn’t this great!”

  But Woodrow knew that if he opened his mouth he would scream. So he just shook his head furiously, until he felt himself rolling over on his back. Too frightened to keep his eyes closed, he opened one to find out what was happening. He saw the dragon’s back, Mr. Burrfoot—who had apparently gone quite insane from terror—and the sky, which rolled past from top to bottom. Then the sky gave way to ground, but the ground seemed to be coming from above. If I don’t scream, I am going to vomit, thought Woodrow, and I don’t have any idea which way it will fall. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a hoarse, croaking sound.

  “What did you say?” shouted Tas. As the kender leaned back in the saddle, the dragon finished its roll and once again dived straight down toward the ground. “C’mon Woodrow, loosen up!” shouted Tas, tugging at the human’s shirt. The dragon leveled out, eight feet off the ground, and shot down a narrow street with buildings crowding in on both sides. It turned a corner, side-swiped a row of flowerpots right off a balcony with the tip of its wing, and then rose just enough to swoop across the rooftops and slalom between chimneys.

  “This is better than going over a waterfall,” shrieked Tas. “What a ride! That gnome is a genius! Here we go again!”

  The dragon climbed steadily, its wings beating rhythmically. Long after Tas expected it to swoop or roll again, it continued climbing. Tas looked back over his shoulder and let out a long whistle. “We sure have covered a lot of ground. I can barely see Rosloviggen anymore.”

  “Where are we?” Those words were the first Woodrow had spoken since leaping onto the dragon’s tail several lifetimes ago.

  “I’m not sure, but we’re way above it,” Tas said matter-of-factly. As if that was its signal, the dragon banked steeply and circled to the right, spiraling down toward the mountains. Moments later, Tas could make out the silhouette of a tower against the white snow background. Then he spotted another tower, jutting out from the face of
a cliff, then three more structures: another tower, a square keep, and what appeared to be the front half of a castle, built into the side of the cliff.

  The dragon skidded to a stop on top of the second tower. Tas looked back to check on Woodrow, who raised his head and looked at the kender with swollen eyes, as if he had just woken up. Both of them blinked at their surroundings.

  The top of the tower, where the dragon had landed, was flat and surrounded by a raised wall about two feet high. The tower itself was cylindrical. Rising behind the tower, however, was a sheer cliff that topped out at least sixty feet above Tas.

  “I think it brought us here on purpose,” said Tas.

  “What makes you say that, Mr. Burrfoot?” Woodrow asked weakly.

  Tas knocked his fist against the dragon. “Because our mount is plain, old wood again. I wonder where we are.” The kender swung his left leg over the front of the saddle and slid down onto the dragon’s wing, then jumped from there to the stone floor. Woodrow followed, clutching his stomach and leaning against the dragon for support.

  “Who’shere?” sounded a hasty, nasal voice from the far side of the dragon. “Doesmybrotherknowyou’vebeenridinghisdragon?”

  Tasslehoff peered around the front of the dragon. He saw a gnome, dressed in baggy, green pants, a dirty, yellow shirt, a blue apron, and an orange hat. A pair of spectacles balanced on the tip of his nose. The pockets of his apron were stuffed full of carpentry and stonecutting tools. He stood near an open trap door, peering over his spectacles at the dragon.

  “Comeon, comeon, thedragonnevercomesbackbyitself. Youmightaswellshowyourself.”

  Tas watched from behind the dragon, fascinated. He knew that kender were distantly related to gnomes, and he could see a little of it in this one’s slender hands.

  “You really should speak more slowly, particularly if you’re going to be that bossy,” said Tasslehoff, stepping around into the gnome’s view, followed by Woodrow.

  “Oh ho!” chortled the gnome. “We seem to have an airsick human and a short, wrinkly, humanoid thing. Hmmm, wrinkles, topknot, rude, lots of pouches and pockets, short; must be either a kender or a meerkimo. No, meerkimos have been extinct since before the Cataclysm. Must be a kender. We’ve been looking for one of those for decades—not many of them around here. You might as well come in; no sense standing around up here exposed to damaging sunlight.”

  “Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” said the kender politely, extending his hand. “And you are—?” The gnome took his hand, peered at it intently, found it empty, and dropped it without interest. Turning, the gnome clomped back down the staircase and out of sight.

  Tas and Woodrow stood for a moment, trying to digest what was happening to them. The gnome’s face reappeared above the stairs briefly. “Come on, I said. There’s no other way down except the quick way,” he noted, looking over the side of the tower. “And very few specimens of any sort choose that.” He disappeared again.

  Woodrow cleared his throat, then spoke to Tasslehoff in a low tone. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Mr. Burrfoot.”

  The gnome reappeared again, this time dangling an apple on a stick toward them. “I’ve got foooooood,” he chanted, waving the stick from side to side. “Red, juicy aaaaaaaapples. Caaaarrots. Raaaabbits. Dishes of buuuuugs. Whatever you kender eat, we’ve got it. Just follow me.”

  “Apples?” Tas was not actually hungry, but he was always ready to eat. “I love apples. I could use something to eat, come to think of it.” Tasslehoff headed toward the door.

  Woodrow took the kender’s arm and swung him around. “This sounds very bad to me, Mr. Burrfoot,” he whispered. “What kind of place serves bugs?”

  “Well, it’s not the Inn of the Last Home,” Tas conceded; he liked the gnome. But, noting Woodrow’s concern, he forced himself to be serious. “There’s only one way to find out where we are.” He stepped through the door before the human could protest further.

  Abruptly, they were in a very narrow, dark stairway that leveled out into a long stone corridor. Ahead, waving them on impatiently, was the gnome.

  “Come on, come on! I have things to do, too, you know.” He pushed up his spectacles distractedly.

  Tasslehoff skipped ahead to his side. “Where are we going? And who are you, if you don’t mind me asking again?”

  “Well, I do. Didn’t my brother tell you anything?” the gnome growled. “He’s always leaving that to me. Well, I just won’t do it this time. You’ll have to wait until he gets here,” he said petulantly.

  “I sure hope he’ll be here soon,” Woodrow said earnestly, “because we really must be getting back to Rosloviggen. Miss Hornslager must be very angry with us for leaving.” He followed the gnome and the kender around a corner into a cavernous room.

  “Wow!” Tas gasped. “What is this place? It looks like the museum in Palanthas.”

  Every inch of the large room, except for its narrow aisles, was covered with long, horizontal, glass display cases set up on high, thin legs. Row upon row of dead insects lay on white velvet cushions inside the cases. There were five cases filled with nothing but blue butterflies, each one slightly different, each with its name neatly penned on a card next to it. Then there were whole cases of red butterflies and white butterflies, then another case of red and white ones. Every color in the rainbow was represented.

  There were two cases with black ants.

  Two more for red ants.

  One for dragonflies.

  Ten for wasps.

  And on and on.

  “Do you collect insects?” asked Tas, running from case to case, pressing his nose to each.

  “What makes you ask that?” the gnome said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Using his sleeve, he rubbed nose prints from the cases after Tasslehoff had passed.

  Tas opened his mouth to respond when Woodrow leaned into him and whispered, “I think he was joking, Mr. Burrfoot.”

  Tasslehoff’s brows knit in confusion. Oh, a joke! Gnomes sure are funny, he thought.

  The gnome hustled them through an archway with a letter “C” above it at the far end of the room, and into an even larger room with a ceiling at least three stories high. The display cases here were much taller and held one stuffed creature each.

  “These are all dinosaurs,” Tasslehoff said, breathless with awe. “I never realized they were so big.” He threw his head back to run his gaze the full length of the largest dinosaur, its incredibly long, muscular neck fully extended. He took note of the plaque at its feet: ‘Apatosaurus.’ Next to it was the number 220.

  “You collect dinosaurs, too? What does that number mean?” Tas asked.

  “Of course we collect dinosaurs,” the gnome said in exasperation. “We collect everything. The number means that it, uh, came into the collection in the year two hundred twenty.”

  “But that was more than one hundred twenty years ago!” Tas gasped. “You can’t be that old.”

  The gnome beamed. “Why, thank you for saying so!” He lifted his orange hat and slicked his hair back with his hand. “I’m not.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to get answers out of me, and I told you you’d have to wait for my brother.”

  “You could at least tell us who you are and why that dragon came to life and what this place is,” Woodrow demanded, his voice shaking.

  In reply, the gnome clamped his lips shut and herded Tas and Woodrow into a small, torch-lit laboratory off the dinosaur display room.

  Water dripped down the cold, stone walls in the circular room. From floor to ceiling on the walls were shelves. The shelves were packed with empty glass jars, and seemed to be organized by color more than shape or function. Tall, thin, red ones were perched next to short, squatty bowls, which ranged in size from one inch in diameter to two feet. Every color imaginable was present.

  In the center of the laboratory was a tall alchemist’s table cluttered with more colorful jars, though these were filled with little creatures of one sort or another suspended in l
iquid. White wisps of smoke bubbled from the tops of two beakers. The room had a faintly unpleasant, medicinal smell.

  Woodrow looked around aprehensively, feeling a shiver tickle his spine. “On second thought,” he said hoarsely, “we don’t really have any questions we need answered. If you’d just be kind enough to show us the door, we’ll be on our way back to Rosloviggen and won’t trouble you any further.” Latching onto Tasslehoff’s arm, the human began backing toward the door.

  “Good!” someone exclaimed from the doorway behind them. Tasslehoff and Woodrow jumped straight up and spun around as one. “Youmadeitsafely. Whatarelief.”

  The gnome from the carousel stumbled in, looking exhausted. Removing a pair of tight, black leather gloves one finger at a time, he collapsed into a chair next to the door. “Whataday!” he wheezed, his speech slowing as he relaxed. The gnome pulled a pair of goggles from his eyes and let them snap down around his neck. “How are we going to get the carousel back, Ligg? I forgot. It wasn’t working right anyway, then that teleport ring misfired and I ended up in—”

  “Whatdoyoumean?” the bigger gnome with the baggy, green pants demanded, his voice reaching proper gnome velocity in his agitation. “Itwasworkingjustfine! Youweren’tfiddlingwiththemusicagain, wereyou? Well?”

  His brother looked sheepish.

  “You did!” the second gnome clutched his head and spun around in anguish. “Oooh, that makes me so mad! Which one did you bash through the ceiling this time, Bozdilcrankinthwakidorious?” His face fell as a thought struck him. “Not the kobold?”

  His brother looked even more sheepish.

  “He was my favorite!” the second gnome cried. “That’s it! From now on I, Oliggantualixwedelian, will get the specimens!”

  “Are those your names?” interrupted Tas.

  “And what’s wrong with them? They’re very common first names,” Bozdil said defensively, toying with his goggles.