Heroes And Fools totfa-2

by Margaret Weis

  “In a manner of speaking, my ‘lord.’ Roder’s mission was a diversion, to distract your kind from our forces moving into the woods from east and west. I never dreamed this trap of mine would catch such big game as you and Bloody Gottrus. You’re wrong about the boy, though-he’s no spy, no righting man at all. He’s the stableboy at Castle Camlargo, that’s all.”

  A silence ensued as Sandys glanced from Roder to Burnond and back to Roder.

  “The boy’s a fool,” Burnond said. “He has no aptitude for the manly arts.”

  Sandys managed to smile through her swollen lips. “I’m the fool, Burnond. Roder had me convinced-up to the point I discovered he couldn’t read. After that I had him pegged as a bounty hunter. Stableboy? Your stable-boy attacked me on foot while I was mounted, and only his quick thinking kept me from getting away. If all your Knights were as manly as Roder, the bandits would have been cleared from this forest long ago.”

  He stared at them both, speechless. Lord Burnond had tricked him and now exposed him as an utter dunce- and now it seemed that Lord Sandys the outlaw was sticking up for him.

  “Your eloquence is misplaced,” Burnond replied loftily. “Those who resist the forces of order will inevitably fall. That is their destiny. Roder’s destiny is in the stable at Camlargo. In two days he’ll be back there, and you’ll be in the dungeon for your many crimes. Move them out, sergeant!”

  The line of prisoners lurched onward. His face burning, Roder watched Sandys go. In fact, he found he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  The capture of Lord Sandys and a large portion of Bloody Gottrus’s feared outlaw band created a sensation in the countryside. People flocked to Castle Camlargo from as far away as Lemish to see the infamous brigands brought to justice. Burnond Everride compounded matters by issuing a proclamation that anyone with evidence against Gottrus’s or Sandys’s gangs should come to Camlargo and confront the villains at their trial. People came by the hundreds to do just that.

  All of this passed with Roder back in the stable, diligently forking hay into the byres and mucking out the many stalls. Berry was back, having been recovered from Sandys’s camp by Burnond’s men. In his own stoic way, the old horse seemed glad to see Roder again. He demonstrated his feelings by stepping on Roder’s toes with a heavy iron-shod hoof.

  A scaffold was erected in the castle courtyard. Here the outlaws were paraded before the angry crowd one by one, to receive their howls for vengeance. Roder waited for Sandys to appear, but Burnond was saving for last the rare spectacle of hanging a female outlaw. Roder tried once to visit her in her cell, but the Knights on duty would not allow him in.

  “Go back to your dunghill, boy,” one of them told him. “Leave justice to real Knights.”

  The second day of the trial went much the same as the first. Chained prisoners were led out of the dungeon to the wooden platform, to await their rum before their accusers. It was midafternoon before Roder spotted Sandys at the end of the line. Her cuts and bruises looked improved, and she’d been put in clothes suitable for her gender. In a simple homespun shift, she looked more like a farmer’s wife and less like an infamous outlaw.

  Things went slowly. Some of Gottrus’s worst men were ahead of her, and the accusations against them were lengthy and many. Some of the tales of murder, theft, and rape were lurid and horrible. The outlaws were all crowded together on the raised platform. Between chores Roder returned to the stable door to check on Sandys and monitor her progress to the scaffold.

  It was late morning. Soon the proceedings would have to break for lunch. Guards were thinking about their meal, and the crowd was howling at a particularly venomous outlaw. While the courtyard was distracted, Sandys made a furtive moment that Roder spotted. The outlaw had produced a short length of wire hidden in her hair and was trying to use it to open her manacles. Roder opened his mouth to cry out, but said nothing. He bit his lip as the heavy chains fell from her wrists. She caught them with her knees, preventing them from noisily striking the ground. Even the brigand in front of her didn’t realize that she was free.

  Sandys took a small step backward while facing ahead, men another. Roder was fascinated. He shack a piece of wheatstraw in his teeth and leaned against the door frame, chewing. In one swift movement the outlaw dropped off the platform, turned and dashed to the castle wall some yards away. Her timing was excellent. Amazingly, no one had noticed.

  Roder watched intently as she tore the sleeves from her shift and used one to make a scarf for her head. She squatted close to the wall, tore a doublespan of cloth from the hem of her shift, and used it as a sash for her waist. She used smut from the wall stones to dirty her face. In moments the notorious outlaw had taken on the appearance of an unwashed peasant woman. There were several score like her in the courtyard that very moment.

  Sandys sidled around the edge of the crowd. Her disguise was perfect, and the men-at-arms paid no attention to her. She worked her way closer to the gate. Commandant Burnond was observing the trials from a balcony on the second floor of the keep, and Sandys passed directly below him. His impassive gaze betrayed no surprise, no alarm, only arrogance.

  Roder spat out his straw and shouldered his pitchfork. This was his chance.

  Sandys walked right out the open gate, against the stream of local folk filing in to see the brigands meet justice. The guards ignored her. A dozen paces from the castle, she began to walk faster. Down the hill were open fields of grass, and beyond that, the forest. Once out of sight of the gate, Sandys struck out across the meadow. Distant shouts from the courtyard crowd could still be heard. Her escape was still unnoticed, but the vengeful roar put haste in Sandys’s step.

  “Hold!”

  Roder, pitchfork in hand, appeared on her right. She gauged the distance between him and the edge of the woods. Too far; he could easily catch her if she tried to run. She angled a bit to improve her lead, then said, “Well, stable boy. How did you know where I was?”

  “I watched you,” he said. “I saw everything you did. You were wonderfully clever.”

  “How did you get here ahead of me?”

  “Postern gate. I ran.”

  She inched a few more steps through the knee-high grass. “You think you can stop me?”

  “If I brought you back now, it’d show Lord Burnond I’m no fool.”

  She palmed the sweat from her eyes. “Is that what you want? The approval of the Knights? You’ll never get it, not even by recapturing me. You’ll never be anything but a stablehand to them.”

  He slowly lowered the pitchfork. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I thought about what you and Lord Burnond said the day you were captured. He’s known me all my life, and he thinks I’m a worthless shoveler of manure. You knew me for two days and thought I was a clever spy. That’s why I’m going to let you go.”

  She folded her arms. “Roder, you are a fool. How do you know I didn’t say those things just to flatter you?”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Frowning, Sandys strode over to him and eyed him up and down. Without warning, she took his face in her hands and kissed him fiercely.

  He gaped. “What was that for?”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  She lifted her skirt and started running for the woods. “I’ll see you again, Roder. Count on it!”

  He leaned on the pitchfork and watched Sandys race through the still grass. Burnond would be apoplectic over her escape, no doubt. Roder would enjoy that. He touched his lips, where the taste of the infamous bandit “Lord” Sandys lingered. He enjoyed that, too.

  See her again? Why not?

  Sandys reached the thick green line of trees and plunged in. She never looked back.

  Much Ado About Magic

  Kevin James Kage

  “Hello!” shouted the kender.

  Laudus started. His hand flew to the side, tipping an inkwell and soaking a manuscript with rich black ink. Rising from his seat, the old man thunde
red across the study and thrust his head out the window.

  Fifty feet below him, the little man stood at the gates of the tower, peering about and shouting “Hello!” every few moments.

  “Be quiet!” the archmage said.

  “Hello!” the kender said as he spotted the man. He waved his arms in greeting. “I say! Could you open the door, please? It seems to be stuck!”

  “Absolutely not! Leave at once!”

  “I can’t leave! I have some very important information to relate!”

  “Absolutely out of the question! Go away!”

  “But it’s very important!”

  Mustering his patience, the archmage said, “Well, what is it?”

  The kender looked taken aback. “I couldn’t tell you! You might be a spy!”

  The old man scowled and threw the now-empty inkwell. It struck the ground to the right of the kender, bounced a foot more, and landed with a dusty thud. The kender looked astonished beyond measure.

  “Thank you!” he said cheerfully. “But all I really need is the door opened!”

  Laudus looked about for something else to throw, but he found nothing disposable. He opted for the next-best solution.

  “Cedwick!”

  Moments later, a lanky young man stumbled into the room. Though merely an apprentice, he stood a full head taller than Laudus and possessed a good deal more hair. “Almost done, Master,” he said. “Your fine robes have been packed as you requested, and I’ve taken the liberty of packing-”

  “Enough, enough,” Laudus said. “I’ll finish the packing. There’s something else I want you to do. There’s a kender outside.”

  “Akender?Why?”

  “How should I know? Go deal with him!”

  “Maybe he wants to give you information for the Conclave meeting.”

  “Foolish boy! The Conclave doesn’t inform outsiders of its meetings. Least of all, kender.” He waved a bony finger at his apprentice. “Don’t you fill the kender’s head with any ideas. If you so much as mention the Tower of High Sorcery, we’ll never be rid of him!”

  “Of course, sir,” Cedwick bowed. “What if he has some important information, though?”

  “No kender in the history of Krynn has ever had important information.” After a moment, Laudus added, “Unless, of course, he stole it.”

  From beyond the window, the kender began to sing a bawdy drinking song in an off-key tenor voice.

  “Go get rid of him!”

  “Yes, Master!”

  Quite suddenly the kender changed keys, becoming considerably more shrill and, amazingly enough, more off-key. The old man felt a headache coming on.

  “I’ve come to speak to Master Laudus about the Conclave meeting,” the kender said brightly.

  A little voice inside Cedwick’s head told him he had heard incorrectly. The kender couldn’t have said, “I’ve come to speak to Master Laudus about the Conclave meeting.”

  “Excuse me?” the young man asked.

  “I’ve come to speak to Master Laudus about the Conclave meeting,” the kender repeated.

  Cedwick stood there dumbly. It still sounded like “the Conclave meeting.”

  “You’ve come to speak to Master Laudus about the Conclave meeting?”

  “Yes!”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  The kender nodded. “I have! I heard the Conclave was holding a very important meeting about the disappearance of magic, and I have information on the subject.”

  “Well, then, why are you here at my master’s tower? Why didn’t you go to the Tower of High Sorcery?”

  Cedwick suddenly remembered he wasn’t supposed to mention the Tower of High Sorcery. This could mean trouble.

  The kender, however, seemed unsurprised.

  “Because!” he said. “Everyone knows the great Master Laudus is attending the Conclave meeting, and I thought he could best relay my information, being a higher wizard than me.”

  “You are a wizard?” the apprentice asked.

  In truth, the kender did look like a wizard-or perhaps a satire of one. He wore a voluminous gray robe. Silvery symbols covered every available inch of the cloth. Clutched in one hand, the little man held an intricately carved staff. From its look, it had probably been a hoopak at some stage of its life, but the sling had been replaced by a beautiful shard of blue crystal. The kender’s other hand could not be seen, for it lay buried beneath a mass of rings, bracelets, and assorted bangles. No less numerous were the necklaces and pendants about the kender’s neck. Earrings dangled from his pointed ears. The apprentice wondered how this fellow managed to stand with the weight of that jewelry.

  “Well, I’m not exactly a wizard,” the kender admitted.

  “Not exactly?”

  “I’m more of a wizard slayer.”

  “A wizard slayer?”

  “Why do you repeat everything I say?”

  “Why do I-” Cedwick began before thinking better of it. He stared at the kender incredulously. “What do you mean you are a wizard slayer?”

  “That’s my name! Halivar Wizardslayer. What’s your name?”

  “Cedwick,” the apprentice mage said hastily. “So you don’t actually kill wizards?”

  “Of course I do! I wouldn’t be deserving of my name if I didn’t, now would I?”

  “Have you killed many of them?”

  “Every one I have ever met,” said Halivar. “That makes-” he glanced at the sky, thinking noisily, “Eight- well, seven. The eighth was an alchemist, not a wizard, but he had a magic ring and-

  “Why do you kill wizards?”

  “Oh, it’s not that I mean to kill them or anything! I really have nothing against them at all! It’s just that when I come into contact with a wizard, sooner or later, he dies.”

  “Are you telling me I’m about to die?”

  “No, no! You’re standing in the protective circle. You’re completely safe.”

  Cedwick looked down. To his surprise, he found himself standing in a crudely drawn circle in the dirt.

  “You did this?” he asked the kender.

  “Before you arrived,” Halivar said, nodding. “Just coincidental that you stood in it. Lucky for you!”

  “Now, look,” Cedwick said, stepping forward.

  “No, please! Don’t leave the circle! It would be just awful if I killed you!”

  The young man shook his head. “I don’t believe you have a curse.”

  “Oh, yes, I do! I’m sure of it. That’s why I’ve been studying magic! I want to end the curse.”

  Cedwick glanced at the kender sharply, “You say you’ve been studying magic? How?”

  “I have these books!” the kender said, smiling. From beneath the folds of his robes he drew forth a set of four mismatched tomes tied together with a length of cord.

  Cedwick’s eyes grew wide. “Please let me see those!”

  Halivar thought for a moment before he said, “Okay, but don’t step outside the confines of the protective circle!” The kender set the books down along the edge of the circle and stepped back a dozen feet.

  Cedwick knelt and carefully picked up the books. Even without a close inspection he could tell they were genuine spell books. Furthermore, they appeared to be spell books of four different mages. The spines of all but one book bore sigils of protection. He guessed that a little of their original magic remained, just as certain artifacts within Master Laudus’s tower held some of their powers.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “I found them!”

  “Found them?”

  “Well,” Halivar said, “it seemed to me that the wizards would not be needing them anymore, being dead and all. So I thought I could use them to help understand what was happening.”

  Cedwick rose to his feet. “You understand that studying magic without the approval of the High Council is a serious offense?”

  “Is it really?” the kender said inquisitively. “I’ve never committed a serious offense before. Not on purpose
at least!” His eyes hardened, his brow furrowed, and he stood straight and resolute. “What is the penalty for such a crime?”

  The young man couldn’t help but chuckle at the kender’s sudden resolve. “This is your punishment. You must go home. Leave these books and any other items you have acquired from mages here with me, and don’t try to learn magic again.”

  Halivar hesitated. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have very important information for the Conclave! I must deliver it to Master Laudus.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot. Well, you’re in luck! I am in charge of deciding who will see Master Laudus.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course,” Cedwick lied. “Why do you think he sent me out to greet you?”

  “Well, may I see the him now?”

  “Not yet. First, I must hear your story.”

  “Oh, of course.” The kender bowed, but he stood there a long moment without saying anything.

  “Go on! Speak up!”

  The kender looked as if he were having a difficult time of it. Finally he looked levelly at Cedwick and stood straight as an arrow, as if he were a man facing his death without fear.

  “Master Cedwick, I have destroyed magic. .”

  “. . And so as I was picking up the broken bits of mandolin and offering an apology to the minstrel, the alchemist’s carriage collided with the vendor’s cart, and the sausage flew into the magic circle,” Halivar finished.

  “So the sausage disrupted the spell?” Cedwick yawned.

  “No, the sausage attracted the stray dogs.”

  “So the dogs disrupted the spell?”

  “No, no, no! It was the crate of apples the dwarf was carrying! Haven’t you been listening?”

  Cedwick thought he had been listening. Of course, he thought he’d been listening the first two times the kender told the story as well.

  “So if I were to sum the story up into a single sentence,” he said, “I might say that due to a string of accidental mishaps-