He shoved aside the tree branch and looked around to get his bearings. The strange and unfamiliar moon of this strange and unfamiliar Krynn was very bright this night, and Tasslehoff was at last able to see something, although that something was only more tree branches. Tree branches to the left of him, tree branches to the right. Tree branches up, and tree branches down. Tree branches as far as the eye could see. He looked over the edge of the chimney and found the grate, perched in a branch about six feet below him.
Tasslehoff tried to determine how far he was from the ground, but the branches were in the way. He looked to the side and located the top of one of the Tower’s two broken minarets. The top was about level with him. That gave him some idea of how far he had climbed and, more importantly, how far the ground was below.
That was not a problem, however, for here were all these handy trees.
Tasslehoff pulled himself out of the chimney. Finding a sturdy limb, he crawled carefully out on it, testing his weight as he went. The limb was strong and didn’t so much as creak. After chimney climbing, tree climbing was simple. Tasslehoff shinnied down the trunk, lowered himself from limb to friendly and supportive limb, and finally, as he gave a sigh of exultation and relief, his feet touched firm and solid ground.
Down here, the moonlight was not very bright, hardly filtering through the thick leaves at all. Tas could make out the Tower but only because it was a black, hulking blot amongst the trees. He could see, very far up, a patch of light and figured that must be the window in Dalamar’s private chamber.
“I’ve made it this far, but I’m not out of the woods yet,” he said to himself. “Dalamar told Palin we were near Solanthus. I recall someone saying something about the Solamnic Knights having a headquarters at Solanthus, so that seems like a good place to go to find out what’s become of Gerard. He may be dull, and he certainly is ugly, and he doesn’t like kender, but he is a Solamnic Knight, and one thing you can say about Solamnic Knights is that they aren’t the type to send a fellow back in time to be stepped on. I’ll find Gerard and explain everything to him, and I’m sure he’ll be on my side.”
Tasslehoff remembered suddenly that the last time he’d seen Gerard, the Knight had been surrounded by Dark Knights firing arrows at him. Tas was rather downhearted at this thought, but then it occurred to him that Solamnic Knights were plentiful and if one was dead, you could always find another.
The question now was, how to find his way out of the forest.
All this time he’d been on the ground, the dead were flowing around him like fog with eyes and mouths and hands and feet, moving past him and over him, but he hadn’t really taken any notice, he’d been too busy thinking. He noticed now. Although being surrounded by dead people with their sad faces and their hands that plucked at one of his pouches wasn’t the most comfortable experience in the world, he thought perhaps they might make up for being so extremely cold and creepy by providing him with directions.
“I say, excuse me, sir—Madam, excuse me—Hobgoblin, old chum, could you tell me—I beg your pardon, but that’s my pouch. Hey, kid, if I give you a copper would you show—Kender! Fellow kender! I need to find a way to reach—Drat,” Tasslehoff said after several moments spent in a futile attempt to converse with the dead. “They don’t seem to see me. They look right through me. I’d ask Caramon, but just when he might be useful, he isn’t around. I don’t mean to be insulting,” he added in irritable tones, trying without success to find a path through the cypress trees that pressed thick around him, “but there really are a lot of you dead people! Far more than is necessary.”
He continued searching for a path—any sort of a path—but without much luck. Walking in the dark was difficult, although the dead were lit with a soft white light that Tas thought was interesting at first but after awhile, seeing that the dead looked very lost, sorrowful, and terrified, he decided that darkness—any darkness—would be preferable.
At least, he could put some distance between himself and Palin and Dalamar. If he, a kender who was never lost, was lost in these trees, he had no doubt that a mere human and a dark elf—wizards though they might be—would be just as lost and that by losing himself he was also losing them.
He kept going, bashing into trees and knocking his head against low branches, until he took a nasty tumble over a tree root and fell down onto a bed of dead cypress needles. The needles were sweet-smelling, at least, and they were decently dead—all brown and crispy—not like some other dead he could mention.
His legs were pleased that he wasn’t using them anymore. The brown needles were comfortable, after you got used to them sticking you in various places, and, all in all, Tasslehoff decided that since he was down here he might as well take this opportunity to rest.
He crawled to the base of the tree trunk, settled himself as comfortably as possible, pillowing his head on a bed of soft green moss. It was not surprising, therefore, that the last thing he thought of, as he was drifting off to sleep, was his father.
Not that his father was moss-covered.
It was his father telling him, “Moss always grows on the side of a tree facing—”
Facing …
Tas closed his eyes.
Now, if he could just remember what direction …
“North,” he said and woke himself up.
Realizing that he now could tell what direction he was traveling, he was about to roll over and go back to sleep when he looked up and saw one of the ghosts standing over him, staring down at him.
The ghost was that of a kender, a kender who appeared vaguely familiar to Tas, but then most kender appear familiar to their fellow kender since the odds are quite likely that in all their ambulations, they must have run into each other sometime.
“Now, look,” said Tasslehoff, sitting up. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have spent most of the day escaping from the Tower of High Sorcery, and—as I am certain you know—escaping from sorcerous towers makes a fellow extremely tired. So if you don’t mind, I’m just going to go to sleep.”
Tas shut his eyes, but he had the feeling the ghost of the kender was still there, still looking down at him. Not only that, but Tas continued to see the ghost of the kender on the backs of his eyelids, and the more he thought about it the more he was quite certain he had definitely met that kender somewhere before.
The kender was quite a handsome fellow with a taste in clothes that others might have considered garish and outlandish but that Tasslehoff considered charming. The kender was festooned with pouches, but that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the expression on the kender’s face—sad, lost, alone, seeking.
A cold chill shivered through Tasslehoff. Not a thrilling, excited chill, like you feel when you’re about to pull the glittering ring off the bony finger of a skeleton and the finger twitches! This was a nasty, sickening kind of chill that scrunches up the stomach and squeezes the lungs, making it hard to breathe. Tas thought he would open his eyes, then he thought he wouldn’t. He squinched them shut very hard so they wouldn’t open by themselves and curled into an even tighter ball. He knew where he had seen that kender before.
“Go away,” he said softly. “Please.”
He knew quite well, though he couldn’t see, that the ghost hadn’t gone away.
“Go away, go away, go away!” Tas cried frantically, and when that didn’t work, he opened his eyes and jumped to his feet and yelled angrily at the ghost, “Go away!”
The ghost stood staring at Tasslehoff.
Tasslehoff stood staring at himself.
“Tell me,” Tas said, his voice quivering, “why are you here? What do you want? Are you … are you mad because I’m not dead yet?”
The ghost of himself said nothing. It stared at Tas a little longer, then turned and walked away, not as if it wanted to but because it couldn’t help itself. Tas watched his own ghost join a milling throng of other restless spirits. He watched until he could no longer distinguish his ghost from any other.
Tea
rs stung his eyes. Panic seized him. He turned and ran as he had never run before. He ran and ran, not looking where he was going, smashing into bushes, caroming off tree trunks, falling down, getting up, running some more, running and running until he fell down and couldn’t get up because his legs wouldn’t work anymore.
Exhausted, frightened, horrified, Tasslehoff did something he had never done.
He wept for himself.
17
Mistaken Identity
hile Tasslehoff was recalling with fond nostalgia his travels with Gerard, it may be truthfully stated that at this time Gerard was not thinking fond thoughts about the kender. He wasn’t thinking any sort of thoughts about the kender at all. Gerard assumed, quite confidently, that he would never have anything more to do with kender and put Tasslehoff out of his mind. The Knight had far more important and worrisome matters to consider.
Gerard wanted desperately to be back in Qualinesti, assisting Marshal Medan and Gilthas to prepare the city for the battle with Beryl’s forces. In his heart, he was there with the elves. In reality, he was on the back of the blue dragon, Razor, flying north—the exact opposite direction from Qualinesti, heading for Solanthus.
They were passing over the northern portion of Abanasinia—Gerard was able to see the vast shining expanse of New Sea from the air—when Razor started to descend. The dragon informed Gerard that he needed to rest and eat. The flight over New Sea was long, and once they started out over the water there would be nowhere to stop until they reached land on the other side.
Although he grudged the time, Gerard was in wholehearted agreement that the dragon should be well-rested before the flight. The blue extended his wings to slow his descent and began to circle around and around, dropping lower with every rotation, his destination a large expanse of sandy beach. The sea was entrancing seen from above. Sunlight striking the water made it blaze like molten fire. The dragon’s flight seemed leisurely to Gerard until Razor drew closer to the ground, or rather, when the ground came rushing up to meet them.
Gerard had never been so terrified in his life. He had to clamp his teeth tightly shut to keep from shrieking at the dragon to slow down. The last few yards, the ground leaped up, the dragon plummeted down, and Gerard knew he was finished. He considered himself as brave as the next man, but he couldn’t help but shut his eyes until he felt a gentle bump that rocked him slightly forward in the saddle. The dragon settled his muscular body comfortably, folded his wings to his sides and tossed his head with pleasure.
Gerard opened his eyes and spent a moment recovering from the ordeal, then climbed stiffly from the saddle. He’d been afraid to move during much of the flight for fear he’d fall, and now his muscles were cramped and sore. He hobbled around for a bit, groaning and stretching out the kinks. Razor watched him with condescending, if respectful, amusement.
Razor lumbered off to find something to eat. The dragon looked clumsy on land, compared to the air. Trusting that the dragon would keep watch, Gerard wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down on the sun-warmed sand. He meant only to rest his eyes.…
Gerard woke from the sleep he had never meant to take to find the dragon basking in sunlight, gazing out across the water. At first, Gerard thought he had been napping only a few hours, then he noted that the sun was in a much different portion of the sky.
“How long have I been asleep?” he demanded, clambering to his feet and shaking the sand out of his leathers.
“All the night and much of the morning,” the dragon replied.
Cursing the fact that he had wasted time sleeping, noting that he had left the dragon burdened with the saddle, which was now knocked askew, Gerard began to apologize, but Razor passed it off.
At that, the dragon appeared uneasy, as if something were preying on his mind. Razor looked often at Gerard as if about to speak and then seemingly decided against it. He snapped his mouth shut and twitched his tail moodily. Gerard would have liked to have encouraged the dragon’s confidences, but he did not feel they knew each other that well, so he said nothing.
He had a bad several minutes tugging and pulling the saddle back into position and redoing some of the harness, all the while conscious of more precious time slipping by. At last he had the saddle positioned correctly, or at least so he hoped. He had visions of his grand plans ending in failure as the saddle slid off the dragon in mid-flight, dumping Gerard to an ignominious death.
Razor was reassuring, however, stating that the saddle felt secure to him, and Gerard trusted to the dragon’s expertise, having none of his own. They flew off just as dusk was settling over the sea. Gerard was concerned about flying at night, but as Razor sensibly pointed out, night flying was much safer these days than flying by daylight.
The dusk had a strange smoky quality to it that caused the sun to blaze red as it sank below the smudged horizon line. The smell of burning in the air made Gerard’s nose twitch. The smoke increased, and he wondered if there was a forest fire somewhere. He looked down below to see if he could spot it but could find nothing. The gloom deepened and blotted out the stars and the moon, so that they flew in a smoke-tinged fog.
“Can you find your way in this, Razor?” Gerard shouted.
“Strangely enough, I can, sir,” Razor returned. He fell into one of the uncomfortable silences again, then said abruptly, “I feel obliged to tell you something, sir. I must confess to a dereliction of duty.”
“Eh? What?” Gerard cried, hearing only about one word in three. “Duty? What about duty?”
“I was waiting for your return at about noon time yesterday when I heard a call, sir. The call was as a trumpet, summoning me to war. I had never heard the like, sir, not even in the old days. I … I almost followed it, sir. I came close to forgetting my duty and departing, leaving you stranded. I will turn myself in for disciplinary action upon our return.”
If this had been another human talking, Gerard would have said comfortingly that the man must have been dreaming. He couldn’t very well say that to a creature hundreds of years older and more experienced than himself, so all he ended up saying was that the dragon had remained and that was what counted. At least Gerard knew now why Razor had appeared so uneasy.
Talk ended between them. Gerard could see nothing and only hoped that they would not fly headlong into a mountain in the darkness. He had to trust Razor, however, who appeared to be able to see where he was going, for he flew confidently and swiftly. At length Gerard relaxed enough to be able to pry loose his fingers from the saddle horn.
Gerard had no notion of the passing of time. It seemed they had been flying for hours, and he even dozed off again, only to wake with a horrific start in a cold sweat from a dream that he was falling to find that the sun was rising.
“Sir,” said Razor. “Solanthus is in sight.”
He could see the towers of a large city just appearing over the horizon. Gerard ordered Razor to land some distance from Solanthus, find a place where the blue could rest, and remain safely in hiding, not only from the Solamnic Knights, but from Skie, otherwise known as Khellendros, the great blue dragon, who had held his own against Beryl and Malystryx.
Razor found what he considered a suitable location. Under the cover of a cloud bank, he made an easy landing, spiraling downward in wide sweeping circles onto a vast expanse of grasslands near a heavily wooded forest.
The dragon smashed and trampled the grass when he landed, digging gouges into the dirt with his clawed feet and thrashing the grass with his tail. Anyone who came upon the site would be able to guess at once that some mighty creature had walked here, but this area was remote. A few farms could be seen, carved out of the forest. A single road wound snakelike through the tall grass, but it was several miles distant.
Gerard had sighted a stream from the air, and he was looking forward to nothing so much as a swim in the cool water. His own stench was so bad that he came near making himself sick, and he was itchy from sand and dried sweat. He would bathe and change clothes—rid himself o
f the leather tunic, at least, that marked him a Dark Knight. He’d have to enter Solanthus dressed like a farm hand—shirtless, clad only in his breeches. He had no way to prove he was a Solamnic Knight, but Gerard was not worried. His father had friends in the Knighthood, and almost certainly Gerard would find someone who knew him.
As for Razor, if the dragon asked why they were here, Gerard was prepared to explain that he was under Medan’s orders to spy upon the Solamnic Knighthood.
The dragon did not ask questions. Razor was far more interested in discovering a place to hide and rest. He was in the territory of the mighty Skie now. The enormous blue dragon had discovered that he could gain strength and power by preying on his own kind, and he was hated and feared by his brethren.
Gerard was anxious that Razor find a hiding place. The dragon was graceful in the air, his wings barely moving as he soared silently on the thermals. On the ground, the blue was a lumbering monster, his feet trampling and smashing, his tail knocking over small trees, sending animals fleeing in terror. He brought down a stag with a snap of his jaws, and, hauling the carcass by the broken neck in his teeth, brought it along with him to enjoy at his leisure.
This made conversation difficult, but he answered Gerard’s questions concerning Skie with grunts and nods. Strange rumors had circulated about the mighty blue dragon, who was the nominal ruler of Palanthas and environs. Rumors had it that the dragon had vanished, that he’d handed over control to an underling. Razor had heard these rumors, but he discounted them.
Investigating a depression in a rocky cliff to see if it would make a suitable resting place, Razor dropped the deer carcass by the bank of the stream.
Dragons of a Lost Star Page 22
