Wanderlust

by Mary Kirchoff

  A frantic warning shout from behind came just in time for Tas to sidestep an enormous barrel before it thundered past. The juggernaut gouged a trough through the mud and doused the lower half of Tasslehoff’s body with a sheet of brown water. Two men, both looking frightfully concerned, splashed and galloped after it, one shouting warnings as the other screamed curses and epithets. Tas giggled as he watched the barrel’s progress, people leaping and scrambling out of the way along its route. The show ended when the runaway barrel crashed into a furniture maker’s stall, bringing a colorful canopy flapping down across the debris.

  The crowd quickly returned to its business. As Tas turned back to the festival, a stabbing pain shot up through his leg. He swallowed a yelp and then landed a quick punch against the hip of a burly man in a long canvas coat who was standing on Tas’s foot. Whether the punch actually hurt the man is hard to say, but it drew his attention. His head snapped to one side and he scanned the crowd darkly, but it was several moments before he noticed the diminutive kender at his waist. A growl welled up from somewhere deep inside the man’s cavernous chest. He placed one hand on Tas’s left shoulder, lifted his foot, and gave a mighty shove that sent the hapless kender crashing through the crowd.

  Hopping backward and windmilling furiously to regain his balance, Tasslehoff tumbled into a pile of rugs. He scrambled to safety at the top and sat, looking over the crowd and rubbing his throbbing foot.

  Rough hands grabbed him from behind. “Get your muddy feet off my merchandise, you little urchin!” Tasslehoff was spun around and found himself face to angry face with a slim, bearded man wearing a large satin hat.

  Tas glanced down at his mud-soaked leggings and the trail of dirty, wet footprints leading across the carpets to where he now stood. He giggled, which was certainly a mistake. The words “I’m sorry,” were barely formed on his lips when the merchant realized his mistake, too.

  “A kender! And I mistook you for an innocent child. Away!” he roared.

  “But I was pushed,” protested Tasslehoff. “It wasn’t my fault—”

  “Away!” The rug merchant’s face turned purple with anger. His hands flew across Tas’s upper body, probing and poking the kender’s woolen vest and pockets, which only made Tasslehoff giggle again. When the merchant was satisfied that nothing of his was secreted on Tas’s body, he whirled the little fellow around and pushed him away, back into the milling crowd.

  It would be natural to think Tasslehoff was discouraged by all the manhandling he’d been subjected to, but kender are not so easily put off. It was all part and parcel of the fair, and Tas had a taste for excitement. He was also partial to the crispy-fried spiral cakes sprinkled with sugar, which he purchased from a toothless but jolly, red-cheeked old woman. Absently sucking the sugar from his fingers, he set off to explore the grounds.

  Strains of exotic music drifted across the festival grounds, sounds of long-stringed instruments and tiny cymbals, which wrapped Tasslehoff up in their pulsing rhythm. Like a dog on a scent, the kender threaded through the seething crowd and found his way to the stage. On it, a dark-skinned woman shivered and whirled, her silk veils floating like gossamer petals. Steel coins jangled on her wrists, ankles, and hips. The music, strange and wonderful, seemed filled with color and faraway scents.

  But even that wasn’t enough to hold Tas’s attention when the magic show started up in the next stall.

  Foul-smelling smoke drifted across the stage. With a whoosh, a man appeared in the smoke, grimacing. The crowd swayed in awe, though Tas was quite certain he saw the curtain move just before the man “materialized.” The fellow was dressed in a floor-length forest green tunic, so dark it almost appeared black. A fur-trimmed robe of the same color reached just below his waist. Both items were decorated with cabalistic symbols of every size and color.

  “I am the great and potent Fozgoz Mithrohir,” announced the wizard, “grandson and only surviving heir of the equally great and potent Fozgond Mithrohir, the Eternal High Light and Grand Mustard of the Imperial Order of Green Wizards! Stand back!”

  With that, he produced a wand from his left sleeve and flourished it menacingly toward the crowd, which stepped back respectfully.

  “I shall now summon here, to this spot, before you, with great authority and power, a creature of the nether planes, a dread beast from whence you cannot imagine, for only I, Fozgoz, have ever ventured there to return again. Do not be alarmed, for it is completely within my power and under my control. I am master of this dire creature, having established my authority in wizardly combat against the nemesis in its own magical world! Now, silence, and stand back!”

  Tasslehoff, like everyone else, stared unblinking and dry-eyed as Fozgoz waved his wand in complex and mystic convolutions through the air. Sparks sputtered from its tip as it traced its sulfurous pattern. Then, with a bang, another cloud of acrid smoke burst across the crowd. Tasslehoff and other spectators who stood in the front rows staggered back, blinking their stinging eyes and coughing. The first to rush forward afterward was Tas, who stared intently into the swirling cloud. Emerging from it, looking somewhat dazed and hardly ferocious, was … Tas could see it was about the size and shape of a goat, but hairless and apparently covered with orange scales. It had only one horn. As the crowd gasped and gaped in astonishment, the creature stood placidly chewing. Just as Tas reached out to touch it, an assistant rushed forward and led the incredible monster away behind the curtain.

  With his eyebrows twisted to an unnatural posture, Fozgoz glared at Tasslehoff.

  “You are certainly a brave and adventurous fellow, little traveler,” he announced. “That creature would have torn off your arm and swallowed it whole, then lapped up your blood for dessert, had I not been here to contain its bestial urges.”

  “It looked like a billy goat,” said Tas, suspicious.

  “You noticed that, did you?” Fozgoz’s smile was patronizing. “That is because the universe contains only a finite number of forms. To grant existence to all creatures, some forms must be used twice, or even more, on the many planes of existence. Do not be fooled. It merely resembled a goat in outward shape.” The astonished crowd murmured over its new enlightenment.

  Turning to the man next to him, Tasslehoff muttered, “It sure looked like a goat. Didn’t you think it looked like a goat?”

  Before the man could answer, Fozgoz interrupted. “Tell me, little traveler. You are a kender?”

  “Tasslehoff Burrfoot, of the Kendermore Burrfoots. Have you heard of us?”

  “Thankfully, no,” Fozgoz said, drawing laughter from the crowd, “but I’m certain everyone here knows of the strange and wonderful things kender carry in their pouches. Perhaps you would allow me?” The magician extended a hand to Tasslehoff, his eyebrow raised questioningly.

  Tasslehoff’s face lit up. “Sure, I’d love to!” He stepped forward and slipped the pouch from his shoulder. As he began unknotting the drawstring, Fozgoz stopped him.

  “Please,” he said, “I am a wizard, after all. There is no need to open the purse. I can divine, yes, even extract, its contents while it is still tightly drawn. Stand here.”

  Tasslehoff stepped obediently to the place next to Fozgoz. The magician placed his left hand lightly against the pouch. In his right he waved the wand.

  “Now relax, my valiant friend,” he cautioned. His eyes grew narrow, his lips pursed tightly together, and he passed the wand close to the pouch. “Radorum, Radorae, Radorix, Radorostrum!” A shower of sparks burst from the end of the wand and rained over Tasslehoff. Fozgoz stepped back triumphantly, holding his left hand aloft. The crowd gasped. Slowly he lowered his palm to Tasslehoff’s eye level, and the kender saw that it held the dried foot and beak of a raven.

  Tasslehoff peered at the objects. “Wow, I’d forgotten all about those. But hey, you missed the best stuff. Here, let me show you.” Before Fozgoz could object, Tas popped open his pouch and pulled out a beautiful orange and green feather. “Here’s a harpy’s tail feather.
And a minotaur’s tusk, and a lock of somebody-or-other’s hair, though he was important at the time, and some moon dust from Lunitari—or is it Solinari? Well, anyway, Uncle Trapspringer brought it back from some moon or other. Where’s that powdered pegasus hoof? Oh, and I have maps of everywhere I’ve ever gone, which is just about everywhere, and lots of places I haven’t gone, too.”

  By now the crowd was pressing in, trying to get a look at the strange and wonderful things Tasslehoff held in his small fists. Fozgoz waved his arms against the pressing crowd, but it was no use.

  Just as Fozgoz was about to give up on the rest of the show, he heard the kender’s voice calling his name. “Mighty Fozgoz! Look!”

  The spectators parted far enough so Fozgoz could see Tasslehoff. In his outstretched palm he held a raven’s beak and two dried feet. “Look, I found them. They were back in my pouch. How’d you do that, without waving your wand, I mean?”

  Caught off guard, Fozgoz looked down to his own hand to see whether his props were still there. They were. Unfortunately, at least sixteen members of his audience saw them, too.

  “Say, what sort of a double-dealing trick is that?” asked one of the larger members of the audience, stepping toward Fozgoz.

  “What do you take us for, a pack of fools?” asked another. “I’d say we ought to know phony magic when we see it.”

  Fozgoz bristled. “Phony magic! I’d hold my tongue if I were you. I shall overlook your brazen words this time, but do not test me! I warn you all, even a wizard of my wisdom can be pushed only so far.”

  “If you’re such a great mage, what are you doing playing a festival?”

  By now, Fozgoz was encircled on three sides and his threats and warnings were not having any marked effect. Onlookers loudly and satirically called for some demonstration of real power. “C’mon, Fozgoz, plant a lightning bolt right here,” snorted one man, thumping his chest, much to the crowd’s amusement.

  “All right, I warned you,” blustered Fozgoz. “Now step back or I just might do something you will regret for a long time! I just might … Oh, dear. Now where’s my wand?”

  Several yards from the beleaguered magician but hidden by the thronging humans, Tasslehoff retied and shouldered his pouch. His naturally lined face was further creased with disappointment over the meager magic show. As he threaded his way out through the onlookers, a brief flurry of sparks sputtered unnoticed from his pouch.

  “You’re insulting me. Is that why you came here, just to insult me?”

  Tasslehoff was readying to apologize to whomever he had insulted—not that he could remember insulting anyone lately—when another voice stopped him. “Insult? I’m insulting you? You’re the insulting one, with prices like this.”

  Tasslehoff quickly spotted the source of the argument. A human, obviously a wanderer, judging from his worn, practical clothing, was in a heated debate with a dwarf over a piece of merchandise. Past middle age, the dwarf had graying hair above bushy eyebrows, a red bulb of a nose, and a practiced snarl beneath his mustache.

  “Merchandise? You call this merchandise? You should be thanking me for even stopping to look at it.”

  The two were obviously not agreeing on either the quality or the value of the jewelry the dwarf was selling. Tasslehoff watched as the red-faced dwarf, holding a silver brooch and a fine neck chain, placed them next to a small bracelet in a glass display case. He dusted off his thick hands on the front of his blue tunic, as if he could brush away the rude customer.

  “Excuse me, stranger,” he said, his tone brittle, “but the quality of my work is excellent—I am the only dwarven metalworker to ever have worked for the Speaker of the Sun himself. My prices are more than fair. I’m selling jewelry here, not fish. If you’re looking to barter, then it’s fish you want and you should walk down to the market.” With that, the annoyed dwarf turned to answer another customer’s question. But the surly human would not be ignored.

  “Fish,” snorted the man. “Now there’s a respectable business. Everyone can smell when your merchandise is bad. But with jewelry it’s different.” The man leaned over the case and peered inside, tracing items with his finger. “You do have one piece that’s interesting, if only you’d be reasonable and bargain.…”

  The dwarf whirled on the man. “I’ve told you, the bracelet isn’t for sale! How thick are you? It’s not for sale at any price and especially not for the fish-market figures you’ve been tossing around.” To emphasize his point, the dwarf took a small key from a chain on his thick waist and locked the display case that housed the bracelet in question. “Now, if you’re done wasting my time …”

  Tasslehoff lost track of the verbal joust as he edged closer with his attention focused on the disputed bracelet. It was a rather simply forged copper bracelet with several mounted stones and just enough detail to fascinate a kender—Tasslehoff, in particular. While no such thought passed through his mind, clearly Tasslehoff wanted to see how it felt on his wrist.

  In moments he stood next to the dwarven jeweler’s stall. It was a rough structure, like most of those at the fair, made of planks laid across barrels or sawhorses on three sides and with a curtain or tent at the back.

  This particular stall was no tidier or messier than most, though the racial mix at the festival apparently created some problems for the proprietor. Being a dwarf and about four feet tall, he was most comfortable with his plank counters about two feet off the ground. But most of his customers were human. To get a good look at his wares, they needed the counters considerably higher, which put them just about at the jeweler’s nose. In the spirit of compromise, the smith had positioned the planks a little less than three feet up, making them equally unhandy for everyone.

  Tasslehoff stood almost exactly one head taller than the plank and could have comfortably rested his chin on it, if his head had been tired and he had wanted to. But it wasn’t, and he didn’t. What he really wanted was a very close look at that bracelet.

  It’s obviously here to be admired, said Tas to himself. The dwarf had only locked the display case to discourage the rude human. Taking a long, thin needle from his pack, he reached at last across the table, quite unnoticed, and sprang the tiny lock on the case, which the dwarf would have done himself if he were not otherwise engaged, Tas reasoned. Slipping his hand under the glass on one side of the case, his fingers met the bracelet’s cool metal. Tas quickly turned away to examine the item, because the light was much better from the other side.

  The copper bracelet had an exquisite simplicity that the kender found most appealing. And he was very happy to discover four semiprecious stones, just as he’d suspected. Better yet, they were odd stones, of a variety he’d not seen before. Their color was pale amber. Each was a slightly different shape, but no more than a quarter-inch in diameter. The bracelet was quite small, not meant for a human’s or dwarf’s thick wrist. Slipping it over his hand, he was delighted to see that it fit perfectly and was as light as a feather.

  Tasslehoff turned back to the booth to ask the proprietor a few questions, but, to Tas’s surprise, the dwarf was gone. The crowd that had gathered was drifting away, the rude customer having departed.

  “Excuse me, but could you … Pardon me, but do you know where the …” Darting from one person to another as the knot of onlookers swiftly broke up and dispersed, Tasslehoff could not get the attention of anyone who might have seen where the dwarf went. In moments he found himself standing alone in front of the jeweler’s booth.

  Tas plucked a silver brooch from an open display box on the plank counter. Turning it over in his hand, he could see plainly that it was made by a master. Other pieces in the box bore the same distinctive style, but the bracelet, while apparently made by the same person, was leaner and simpler. It had none of the typical characteristics of dwarven jewelry: heavy filigree, large stones, colorful metallic and mineral inlays, or exotic alloys.

  As Tas placed the brooch and several other items back in the display box, he reached a resolve. The b
racelet was obviously too wonderful to trust its safety to the meager locks on the dwarf’s display boxes. Actually, to do so would be most irresponsible. Instead, Tas would keep it safe on his wrist until he could find the dwarf and return it.

  With a light step Tasslehoff turned away from the booth to set out in search of the dwarf jeweler. He expected a difficult pursuit; after all, the spring festival was a large affair, and the dwarf could be anywhere. He had gone about five paces when a thunderous bellow halted his steps.

  “Thief! Stop that little thief!”

  Quickly Tas scanned around, hoping to catch sight of the dastard, perhaps even bring him down with a quick shot from his hoopak sling. But he saw no one fleeing in panic. He saw no one who looked like a “little thief,” though that could have been a figure of speech, he decided. It dawned on Tas that what he did see was a lot of people staring at him.

  Tasslehoff glanced over his shoulder in time to see the dwarf jeweler, red faced and steaming mad, charging toward him. The kender deftly stepped out of the dwarfs way to let him pass and catch the thief, but the dwarf snapped to a halt and a powerful arm shot out and grabbed the kender by the throat all in one smooth motion; a surprisingly agile maneuver for a dwarf, Tas thought.

  Having moved his hands into a tight grip on Tasslehoff’s shoulders, the dwarf shook him roughly, until the kender’s tongue lolled in his head. The dwarf sputtered and fumed, so furious was he that he could barely speak. “Hand over my merchandise, you little … I could just … Your race should have been wiped out during the Cataclysm … Guards! Guards! I ought to … Guards!”