“Woodrow and Vinsint, take two-thirds of the kender already assembled and start pushing all that debris from the tornado’s wake up against those buildings on the far side.
“Is there anybody here who knows lumber?” A dozen fingers pointed to a kender in the crowd who was staring intently at Tasslehoff. “Are you a carpenter?” asked Tas.
The kender stared.
“Do you run a sawmill?”
No response.
“What’s the matter with him?”
A small girl stretched up and plucked a wad of paraffin from the older kender’s ear. “He wants to know if you’re a carpenter or a woodcutter, Papa,” she chimed.
The kender beamed. “Both,” he replied. Then he recovered the paraffin from the girl and stuffed it back into his ear.
Tas cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Then you go with Phineas and build the flumes!” Again, the kender smiled at him blankly. Tas motioned to the girl, who removed the paraffin once again.
“He wants you to go with this man and build some flumes,” she told him.
“Fine,” responded the kender, grinning. “I’ll help all I can.” As he turned to join Phineas, his face lit up even more.
“Doctor Ears!” he cried. Phineas winced. “It’s me, Semus Sawyer! I’ve been following your prescription exactly, and it’s miraculous. Every time I take out these plugs, my hearing improves a thousandfold!”
A murmur of sudden recognition passed through the crowd. Phineas took a short step backward as kender closed in on all sides, arms outstretched. Before he could break free, they had closed in, and dozens of hands were pummeling and yanking at him, pushing him this way and that, and—hoisting him on their shoulders? Phineas’s heart nearly thumped out his mouth before he realized that these kender were happy to see him, were actually overjoyed to recognize their beloved doctor!
“Take him to the lumberyard! Build flumes!” Tas shouted over the cheering. “And lift him up higher! His toes are dragging on the ground!”
Soon more kender were streaming into the square, shepherded by Trapspringer and the Metwingers. Leaving several behind to direct latecomers, Tas led them some distance up the tornado’s path, then turned off toward the water tower.
Kendermore’s three water towers were the products of a civic project carried out four years earlier. The mayor and city council at that time decided that if the town had water towers, life would be much easier for people who had to make numerous trips to the city’s wells every day. Instead of drawing water up, they could simply let it run down.
Unfortunately, the towers’ designer neglected to put a spout of any sort on the towers and, even less fortunately, this defect was not discovered until the newly appointed water tower replenishment crews had spent several weeks filling the towers. At that point, the only possible way to repair the deficiency was to chop a hole in the tower bottoms, letting all that water drain out, and then afterwards, to add the spouts. The prospect of seeing several weeks’ work gush away to make up for someone else’s goof so infuriated the water tower crews that they threatened to resign.
This gross mismanagement pushed public opinion about the project to such a low point that it was clear that even if the spouts were added, no one would apply for the certain-to-be-vacated spots on the water tower replenishment crews. In what was perhaps the only clear-sighted decision of the entire affair, the council decided that empty towers with spouts were no more useful than full towers without spouts, and voted to maintain the status quo. Thus, for the last four years, the water towers remained full but spoutless.
By the time the flumes arrived, well over a thousand kender stood assembled under the largest of the three water towers. Flames raced along the debris and threatened to leap across to City Hall and the largely intact portion of the city that remained on the other side.
Tasslehoff had climbed to the top of the tower, where he could see everything and everyone could see him. After surveying the various stations and satisfying himself that everything was ready, he shouted, “Vinsint! You’re the biggest and strongest! You be at the base of the pyramid, right under me! Everyone else, pile up on Vinsint!”
Hundreds of kender of all ages rushed forward, scrambling up over the ogre and each other. Four kender wide at the base and three rows of kender high, with the top row holding Semus’s flumes overhead, they formed a living aqueduct that stretched from the water tower, eighty yards to what had been nicknamed “Tornado Alley.” Trapspringer, who was part of the very end of the aqueduct, felt blasts of heat curling the hairs on his arms and eyebrows.
With the aqueduct complete, Semus scaled the water tower, axe in hand, and began chopping a hole in the side of the enormous, wooden tank. Seconds ticked by, running into minutes. Flames roared along the debris wall, singeing Trapspringer’s tunic and scorching the sides of buildings across Tornado Alley. Semus’s axe, which initially had torn fist-sized chunks of wood from the water tank, now bounced ineffectually away from the rubbery, water-soaked inner layers.
The kender beneath Trapspringer fainted from the heat, sending the front edge of the aqueduct tumbling to the ground. As the flames licked their ankles, the next file struggled heroically to hold up the flume. Tasslehoff, still atop the water tower, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs the only thing that came to mind: the sea chanty that had worked so well with the gully dwarves.
Come all you young fellows who live by the sea,
Kiss a fair maiden and then follow me.
Hoist up the sail and the anchor aweigh,
And run with the wind out through Balifor Bay.
One by one, and then by tens, and then by hundreds, the kender picked up the song. A thin stream of water trickled across Semus’s axe. Another blow started it flowing, and the third created a gush that thundered down the flume. The kender supporting the flume swayed and staggered, but stayed on their feet, and they kept singing.
As the water poured off the end of the flume, enormous clouds of steam jetted skyward and blanketed Tornado Alley. Along the length of the burning debris, flaming beams and glowing embers hissed and sputtered and were extinguished. The water ran in all directions until the wall of steam extended as far as Tasslehoff could see.
Fifteen minutes after the first trickle of water had appeared, the water tower was empty. Exhausted kender collapsed under their flumes into a squirming, snakelike pile, and crawled slowly out to lie panting on the smoking ground. Tasslehoff wiped his arm across his brow and it came away black with soot.
Slowly he picked his way down the water tower and went searching for his friends.
* * * * *
“Tasslehoff! Tasslehoff! Over here!”
Tas and Woodrow looked up from the frothy mugs of warm ale they were sharing outside the newly renamed Scorched Scorpion Inn to see Trapspringer and Damaris approaching, linked arm in arm, leaning into the wind.
“Tas, my favorite nephew! I’ve got wonderful news for you,” bubbled Trapspringer. “Assuming you don’t object, that is,” he added with a mischievous wink to Damaris.
“Damaris Metwinger—your birthmate—and I propose to become engaged, and to be married as soon as possible. You’re off the hook! Ha! What do you think of that?”
Tasslehoff stared at his uncle and his birthmate for a moment. Woodrow thought he detected a hint of sadness in the kender’s expression, though it could have been exhaustion. Then Tas rose, threw his arms around both of them, and hollered, “Tap another barrel; my uncle’s getting hitched!”
Chapter 25
The tornadoes and lightning slowly departed the region of Goodlund during the night, and the following day dawned bright and clear over Kendermore. Trapspringer Furrfoot and Damaris Metwinger were wed at noon in the chamber of the Kendermore Council. The bride’s father, Mayor Merldon Metwinger, presided over the ceremony.
Damaris wore a butter-yellow dress that perfectly matched her soft hair and that was adorned with tiny seed pearls and
creamy brown cat’s-eye agates. Woven into the six braided strands of her topknot were lengths of gold-spun thread, and at the crown of the knot was an arrangement of the finest feathers ever sported by a bluebird. In her fine-boned hands was a bouquet of clover, crabgrass, and lavender bull thistles.
Trapspringer wore his finest cloak of black velvet, a sparkling, white tunic, and wine-colored pants. His head was bare, as were both the bride’s and groom’s feet, a kender symbol of the many roads that would be traveled (and shoes worn out) during a long and happy marriage.
Tasslehoff, dressed in clean, blue leggings and his usual vest and tunic, stood attendant for his uncle. In the pocket of his vest were two wide bands of shiny, polished silver. Under such short notice, Damaris was attended by a blushing Woodrow, who was wearing a new muslin shirt with properly long sleeves.
Smiling proudly, Mayor Metwinger straightened his purple mayoral robes and gulped in a big breath, preparing to ad-lib the traditionally long but unwritten kender marriage ceremony.
“Daddy,” Damaris said, holding tightly to Trapspringer’s hand, “could you give us the condensed version? We’d like to get on to the party at the Autumn Faire.”
“That starts today, does it?” said the mayor, actually relieved. He was still having a bit of trouble, after his bump on the noggin, remembering anything longer than three or four sentences.
“So, will you marry her, and you marry him?”
“Yes!” they both cried at once.
“Done!” the mayor announced joyously. “Now let the celebration begin!”
* * * * *
Tasslehoff lay in the warm autumn sun, his back propped up against a tree on the grounds of the Palace. Moving the Autumn Faire to the relatively unscathed setting on the northeast side of the city was the population’s only concession to the devastation visited upon Kendermore. But the unspoken kender motto, “There’s always more where that came from,” certainly applied to homes. Members of the city’s Department of Housing had been out early with reams of parchment, planning Kendermore’s “new look.” “It’ll be like getting a whole new city!” they all agreed happily. Unfortunately, so far not a one of them agreed with another’s designs.
In the meantime, the rearrangement of buildings into rubble gave the city’s inhabitants whole new places to explore.
Nearby, Tas could hear Phineas and Vinsint.
“With your muscles and my brains,” Phineas was saying, “we could clean up as tour guides on the trail from Kendermore to the Tower of High Sorcery.”
“I don’t know,” said Vinsint, rubbing his large, flat forehead.
“I’m telling you,” wheedled Phineas, “this is a goldmine waiting to be harvested! I arrange the tours, and you take them to the Ruins and lead them safely through the grove. We collect enough money to retire in two, three years, tops!”
“How come it sounds like I’d do most of the work?”
“Are you kidding me?” squealed Phineas. “I’d be stuck doing the tedious stuff—making schedules, taking reservations, advertising, buying supplies—while you’re out taking walks! But I’d be willing to do it for only a slightly higher percentage of the profits—say, eighty percent?”
“You would?” Vinsint asked, his voice edged with eagerness.
Just then, Woodrow sat down next to Tas on the green grass and handed him one of two cups of fresh-squeezed strawberry juice. The human looked out wistfully at the merchants’ tents, the vegetable vendors, the small wedding party nearby at an open foodhall.
“I keep seeing Miss Hornslager here,” he said softly. “She was hoping to get her melons to this faire before they went bad.”
“I know. I miss her, too,” said Tasslehoff. They were quiet for some time.
“What are you going to do now?” Tas asked finally, taking a long sip of the fresh berry juice.
Woodrow chewed on a thick blade of grass. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot since I lost you in Port Balifor,” he said. “These last weeks have taught me a lot, but mainly that life is very short, at least for a human,” he added seriously. “I want to have some fun, but I can do without the danger. I was thinking maybe I’d take over Miss Hornslager’s import business. I pretty much got the hang of it watching her.” He gave Tas a questioning glance. “What do you think?”
“That sounds like a great idea!” said Tas, clapping his hands.
Woodrow nibbled the grass pensively. “Someday I’ll have to go back to Solamnia and make peace with my Uncle Gordon, though. Just not yet.” With a toss of his blond head, he shook the gloomy thoughts away. “How about you? What are you going to do?
Tasslehoff plucked a full-blown dandelion and blew the seeds into the air. “I’ve been thinking about that myself. I haven’t seen my parents in years—since I left on my Wanderlust, actually. I would have tried to find them here in Kendermore yesterday, but things got a little busy, what with the fire and the tornadoes and the wind.”
Tasslehoff sighed, and an uncharacteristic look of concern crossed his face as he spoke. “Anyway, Uncle Trapspringer told me where my parents were living, so I went to find them and invite them to Trapspringer’s wedding.” The tiny creases in his face deepened. “Their house survived the fires and the tornadoes, but they weren’t there. I asked some neighbors about them, but no one knew anything.”
“They were probably out helping friends clean up,” suggested Woodrow. “Or maybe they were among the kender who fled the city.”
“Probably,” Tasslehoff agreed reluctantly. But he didn’t mention that the neighbors hadn’t seen his parents in some time … strange, because they were a bit old for Wanderlust. Tas abruptly decided to hold his concerns at bay on such a happy occasion.
“Look!” he said, pointing to the wedding party clustered around Trapspringer and Damaris, who stood by a silversmith’s booth. “I think the newlyweds are preparing to leave on their honeymoon. Let’s go say good-bye.” The two jumped up and hastened to rejoin the wedding party.
“—And so I bought it,” Trapspringer was saying. “All we have to do is stretch it over both our wrists, say the magic words, and we’ll go to the moon!”
“Oh, do you really think so?” Damaris breathed excitedly. “What a marvelous honeymoon that would be! Let’s try it!”
With that, Trapspringer produced an inch-wide, etched silver band. Snapping it over his own wrist first, he stretched the right side out to enclose Damaris’s own fine-boned one. “There!” he exclaimed in satisfaction. “That ought to do it, dearest. Good-bye, everyone!” Trapspringer’s face became a mask of concentration as he tried to remember the magic words. “Esla sivas gaboing!”
“Good-bye, Uncle Trapspringer!” Tasslehoff sang happily. “I hope this trip to the moon works out better than the one with your first wife!”
Damaris’s face fell into a stormy glare. “What first wiiiiiii—!” In a poof of smoke, Trapspringer and his second wife were gone.
“Oops,” mumbled Tasslehoff, giggling behind his hand.
At dusk that evening, Tasslehoff sat sipping a mug of ale, contemplating the events of his life since leaving the Inn of the Last Home. Gazing at the moon, he thought fondly of Trapspringer and Damaris. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed and he squinted at the full, glowing orb. Could it be? Staring intently, a smile grew on his face. Tasslehoff was certain he saw two tiny shadows racing over the pocked surface—or was it three?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARY KIRCHOFF is the author of numerous DRAGONLANCE® works, including Kendermore, Wanderlust (with Steve Winter), Flint the King (with Douglas Niles), and the Defenders of Magic Trilogy. She is also the head of the Publishing division at Wizards of the Coast. She’d like to think she provides the impartial wisdom of Par-Salian, the courage of Laurana, the heart of Crysania, and the strength of Sturm (though she’s probably more like Crysania there, too).
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