Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Nine Gallivanting

The same night that Silvanoshei accepted the rulership of the Silvanesti, Tasslehoff Burrfoot slept soundly and peacefully—much to his disappointment.

The kender was deposited for safekeeping in a room inside the Solamnic garrison in Solace. Tas had offered to return to the wonderful kender-proof Solace jail, but his request was firmly denied. The garrison room was clean and neat, with no windows, no furniture except a stern-looking bed with iron railings and a mattress so stiff and rigid that it could have stood at attention with the best of the Knights. The door had no lock at all, which might have provided some light afterdinner amusement but was held in place by a wooden bar across the outside.

“ All in all,” Tas said to himself as he sat disconsolately on his bed, kicking his feet against the iron railings and looking wistfully about, “this room is the single most boring place I’ve ever been in my life with the possible exception of the Abyss.”

Gerard had even taken away his candle, leaving Tas alone in the dark. There seemed nothing to do but go to sleep.

Tasslehoff had long thought that someone would do a very good service to mankind by abolishing sleep. Tas had mentioned this to Raistlin once, remarking that a wizard of his expertise could probably find a way around sleep, which took up a good portion of one’s time with very little benefit that Tas could see.

Raistlin had replied that the kender should be thankful someone had invented sleep for this meant that Tasslehoff was quiet and comatose for eight hours out of a day and this was the sole reason that Raistlin had not yet strangled him.

Sleep had one benefit and that was dreams, but this benefit was almost completely nullified by the fact that one woke from a dream and was immediately faced with the crushing disappointment that it had been a dream, that the dragon chasing one with the intent of biting off one’s head was not a real dragon, that the ogre trying to bash one into pulp with a club was not a real ogre.

Add to this the fact that one always woke up at the most interesting and exciting part of the dream—when the dragon had one’s head in his mouth, for example, or the ogre had hold of the back of one’s collar. Sleep, as far as Tas was concerned, was a complete waste of time. Every night saw him determined to fight sleep off, and every morning found him waking up to discover that sleep had sneaked up on him unaw.ares and run away with him.

Tasslehoff didn’t offer sleep much of a fight this night. Worn out from the rigors of travel and the excitement and snuffles occasioned by Caramon’s funeral, Tas lost the battle without a struggle. He woke to find that not only had sleep stolen in on him but that Gerard had done the same. The Knight stood over him, glaring down with his customary grim expression, which looked considerably grimmer by lantern light.

“Get up,” said the Knight. “Put these on.”

Gerard handed Tas some clothes that were clean and well-made, drab, dull and—the kender shuddered—serviceable.

“Thank you,” said Tas, rubbing his eyes. “I know you mean well, but I have my own clothes—”

“I won’t travel with someone who looks as if he had been in a fight with a Maypole and lost,” Gerard countered. “ A blind gully dwarf could see you from six miles off. Put these on, and be quick about it.”

“A fight with a Maypole,” Tas giggled. “I actually saw one of those once. It was at this Mayday celebration in Solace. Caramon put on a wig and petticoats and went out to dance with the young virgins, only his wig slipped over his eye—”

Gerard held up a stem finger. “Rule number one. No talking.”

Tas opened his mouth to explain that he wasn’t really talking, not talking as in talking, but talking as in telling a story, which was quite a different thing altogether. Before Tas was able to get a word out, Gerard displayed the gag.

Tasslehoff sighed. He enjoyed traveling, and he was truly looking forward to this adventure, but he did feel that he might have been granted a more congenial traveling companion. He sadly relinquished his colorful clothes, laying them on the bed with a fond pat, and dressed himself in the brown knickers, the brown wool socks, the brown shirt, and brown vest Gerard had laid out for him. Tas, looking down at himself, thought sadly that he looked exactly like a tree stump. He started to put his hands in his pockets when he discovered there weren’t any.

“No pouches, either,” said Gerard, picking up Tasslehoff’s bags and pouches and preparing to add them to the pile of discarded clothing.

“Now, see here—” Tas began sternly.

One of the pouches fell open. The light from the lantern glittered merrily on the gleaming, winking jewels of the Device of Time Journeying.

“Oops,” said Tasslehoff as innocently as ever he could and indeed he was innocent, this time at least.

“How did you get this away from me?” Gerard demanded.

Tasslehoff shrugged and, pointing to his sealed lips, shook his head.

“If I ask you a question, you may answer,” Gerard stated, glowering. “When did you steal this from me?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Tas replied with dignity. “Stealing is extremely bad. I told you. The device keeps coming back to me. It’s not my fault. I don’t want it. I had a stem talk with it last night, in fact, but it doesn’t seem to listen.”

Gerard glared, then, muttering beneath his breath—something to the effect that he didn’t know why he bothered—he thrust the magical device in a leather pouch he wore at his side.

“And it had better stay there,” he said grimly.

“Yes, you’d better do what the Knight says!” Tas added loudly, shaking his finger at the device. He was rewarded for his help by having the gag tied around his mouth.

The gag in place, Gerard snapped a pair of manacles over Tas’s wrists. Tas would have slipped right out of ordinary manacles, but these manacles were specially made for a kender’s slender wrists, or so it appeared. Tas worked and worked and couldn’t free himself. Gerard laid a heavy hand on the kender’s shoulder and marched him out of the room and down the hall.

The sun had not yet made an appearance. The garrison was dark and quiet. Gerard allowed Tas time to wash his face and hands—he had to wash around the gag—and do whatever else he needed to do, keeping close watch on him all the time and not allowing the kender a moment’s privacy. He then escorted him out of the building.

Gerard wore a long, enveloping cloak over his armor. Tas couldn’t see the armor beneath the cloak, and he knew the Knight was wearing armor only because he heard it clank and rattle:

Gerard did not wear a helm or carry a sword. He walked the kender back to the Knights’ quarters, where Gerard picked up a large knapsack and what could have been a sword wrapped up in a blanket tied with rope.

Gerard then marched Tasslehoff, bound and gagged, to the front of the garrison. The sun was a tiny sliver of light on the horizon and then it was swallowed by a cloudbank, so that it seemed as if the sun were starting to rise and had suddenly changed its mind and gone back to bed.

Gerard handed a paper to the Captain of the Guard. “As you can see, sir, I have Lord Warren’s permission to remove the prisoner.”

The captain glanced at it and then at the kender. Gerard, Tas noticed, was careful to keep out of the light of the flaring torches mounted on the wooden posts on either side of the gate. Instantly the idea came to Tas that Gerard was trying to hide something.

The kender’s curiosity was aroused, an occurrence that often proves fatal to the kender and also to those who happen to be a kender’s companions. Tas stared with all his might, trying to see what was so interesting beneath the cloak.

He was in luck. The morning breeze came up. The cloak fluttered slightly. Gerard caught it quickly, held it fastened in front of him, but not before Tasslehoff had seen the torchlight shine on armor that was gleaming black.

Under normal circumstances Tas would have demanded loudly and excitedly to know why a Solamnic Knight was wearing black armor. The kender probably would have tugged on the cloak in order to obtain a better view and pointed out this odd and interesting fact to the captain of the guard. The gag prevented Tas from saying any of this except in muffled and incoherent squeaks and “mfrts,” which was all he could manage.

On second thought—and it was due solely to the gag that Tasslehoff actually had a second thought—the kender realized that perhaps Gerard might not want anyone to know he was wearing black armor. Thus, the cloak.

Quite charmed by this new twist to the adventure, Tasslehoff kept silent, merely letting Gerard know with several cunning winks that he, the kender, was in on the secret.

“Where are you taking the little weasel?” the captain asked, handing the paper back to Gerard. “And what’s wrong with his eye? He hasn’t got pink eye, has he?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir. Begging the captain’s pardon, but I can’t tell you where I’m ordered to deliver the kender, sir. That information is secret,” Gerard replied respectfully. Lowering his voice, he added, “He’s the one who was caught desecrating the tomb, sir.”

The captain nodded in understanding. He glanced askance at the bundles the Knight was carrying. “What’s that?”

“Evidence, sir,” Gerard replied.

The captain looked very grim. “Did a lot of damage, did he? I trust they’ll make an example of him.”

“I should think they might, sir,” Gerard replied evenly.

The captain waved Gerard and Tas through the gate, paid no further attention to them. Gerard hustled the kender away from the garrison and out onto the main road. Although the morning itself wasn’t quite awake yet, many people were. Farmers were bringing in their goods to market. Wagons were rolling out to the logging camps in the mountains. Anglers were heading for Crystalmir Lake. People cast a few curious glances at the cloaked Knight—the morning was already quite warm. Busy with their own cares, they passed by without comment. If he wanted to swelter, that was his concern. None of them so much as looked twice at Tasslehoff. The sight of a bound and gagged kender was nothing new.

Gerard and Tas took the road south out of Solace, a road that meandered alongside the Sentinel range of mountains and would eventually deposit them in South Pass. The sun had finally decided to crawl out of bed. Pink light spread in a colorful wash across the sky. Gold gilded the tree leaves, and diamonds of dew sparkled on the grass. A fine day for adventuring, and Tas would have enjoyed himself immensely but for the fact that he was hustled along and harried and not permitted to stop to look at anything along the road.

Although encumbered with the knapsack, which appeared quite heavy, and the sword in a blanket, Gerard set a fast pace. He carried both objects in one hand, keeping the other to prod Tasslehoff in the back if he started to slow down or to grab hold of his collar if he started to wander off or jerk him backward if he made a sudden dart across the road.

One would not have guessed it from looking at him, but Gerard, for all that he was of average height and medium build, was extremely strong.

The Knight was a grim and silent companion. He did not return the cheerful “good mornings” of those heading into Solace, and he coldly rebuffed a traveling tinker who was going in their direction and offered them a seat on his wagon.

He did at least remove the gag from the kender’s mouth.

Tas was thankful. Not as young as he used to be—something he would freely admit—he found that between the fast pace set by the Knight and the constant prodding, tugging, and jerking, he was doing more breathing than his nose alone could manage.

Tas immediately asked all the questions he had been storing up, starting with, “Why is your armor black? I’ve never seen black armor before. Well, yes, I have but it wasn’t on a Knight of Solamnia,” and ending with, “Are we going to walk all the way to Qualinesti, and if we are would you mind not seizing hold of my shirt collar in that very energetic way you have because it’s starting to rub off all my skin.”

Tas soon found out that he could ask all the questions he liked, just so long as he didn’t expect any answers. Sir Gerard made no response except, “Keep moving.”

The Knight was young, after all. Tas felt compelled to point out to him the mistake he was making.

“The very best part of questing,” the kender said, “is seeing the sights along the way. Taking time to enjoy the view and investigating all the interesting things you find along the road and talking to all the people. If you stop to think about it, the goal of the quest, such as fighting the dragon or rescuing the woolly mammoth, takes up only small bit of time, and although it’s always very exciting, there’s a whole lot more time stacked up in front of it and behind it—the getting there and the coming back—which can be very dull if you don’t work at it.”

“I am not interested in excitement,” said Gerard. “I want simply to be done with this and to be done with you. The sooner I am finished the sooner I can do something to achieve my goal.”

“And what’s that?” Tas asked, delighted that the Knight was finally talking to him.

“To join the fighting in defense of Sanction,” Gerard answered, “and when that is done, to free Palanthas from the scourge of the Knights of Neraka.”

“Who are they?” Tas asked, interested.

“They used to be known as the Knights of Takhisis, but they changed their name when it grew clear to them that Takhisis wasn’t coming back anymore.”

“What do you mean, not coming back. Where did she go?”

Tas asked.

Gerard shrugged. “With the other gods, if you believe what people say. Personally I think claiming that the bad times are a result of the gods leaving us is just an excuse for our own failures.”

“The gods left!” Tas’s jaw dropped. “When?”

Gerard snorted. “I’m not playing games with you, kender.”

Tas pondered all that Gerard had told him.

“Don’t you have this whole Knight business backward?” Tas asked finally. “Isn’t Sanction being held by the Dark Knights and Palanthas by your Knights?”

“No, I do not have it backward. More’s the pity,” Gerard said.

Tas sighed deeply. “I’m extremely confused.”

Gerard grunted and prodded the kender, who was slowing down a bit, his legs not being as young as they used to be either.

“Hurry up,” he said. “We don’t have much farther.”

“We don’t?” Task said meekly. “Did they move Qualinesti, too?”

“If you must know, Kender, I have two mounts waiting for us at the Solace bridge. And before you can ask yet another question, the reason we walked from the garrison and did not ride is that the horse I am using is not my customary mount. The animal would have occasioned comment, would have required explanation.”

“I have a horse? A horse of my own! How thrilling! I haven’t ridden a horse in ever so long.” Tasslehoff came to a halt, looked up at the Knight. “I’m terribly sorry I misjudged you. I guess you do understand about adventuring, after all.”

“Keep moving.” Gerard gave him a shove.

A thought occurred to the kender—a truly astonishing thought that took away what little breath he had remaining. He paused to find his breath again and then used it to ask the question the thought had produced.

“You don’t like me, do you, Sir Gerard?” Tas said. He wasn’t angry or accusing, jus.t surprised.

“No,” said Gerard, “I do not.” He took a drink of water from a waterskin and handed the skin to Tas. “If it is any consolation, there is nothing personal in my dislike. I feel this way about all your kind.”

Tas considered this as he drank the water, which was quite tepid and tasted of the waterskin. “Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that I’d much rather be disliked for being me than to be disliked just because I’m a kender. I can do something about me, you see, but I can’t do much about being a kender because my mother was a kender and so was my father and that seems to have a lot to do with me being a kender.

“I might have wanted to be a Knight,” Tas continued, warming to his subject. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I probably did, but the gods must have figured that my mother, being small, couldn’t very well give birth to someone as big as you, not without considerable inconvenience to herself, and so I came out a kender. Actually, no offense, but I take that back about being a Knight. I think what I really wanted to be was a draconian—they are so very fierce and scaly, and they have wings. I’ve always wanted wings. But, of course, that would have been extremely difficult for my mother to have managed.”

“Keep moving,” was all Gerard said in reply.

“I could help you carry that bundle if you’d take off these manacles,” Tas offered, thinking that if he made himself useful, the Knight might come to like him.

“No” Gerard returned, and that was that. Not even a thank you.

“Why don’t you like kender?” Tas pursued. “Flint always said he didn’t like kender, but I know deep down he did. I don’t think Raistlin liked kender much. He tried to murder me once, which gave me sort of a hint as to his true feelings. But I forgave him for that, although I’ll never forgive him for murdering poor Gnimsh, but that’s another story. I’ll tell you that later. Where was I? Oh, yes. I was about to add that Sturm Brightblade was a Knight, and he liked kender, so I was just wondering what you have against us.”

“Your people are frivolous and heedless,” said Gerard, his voice hard. “These are dark days. Life is serious business and should be taken seriously. We do not have the luxury for joy and merriment.”

“But if there’s no joy and merriment, then of course the days will be dark,” Tas argued. “What else do you expect?”

“How much joy did you feel, kender, when you heard the news that hundreds of your people in Kendermore had been slaughtered by the great dragon Malystryx?” Gerard asked grimly,

“and that those who survived were driven from their homes and now seem to be under some sort of curse and are called afflicted because they now know fear and they carry swords, not pouches. Did you laugh when you heard that news, kender, and sing ‘tra la, how merry we are this day’?”

Tasslehoff came to a stop and rounded so suddenly that the Knight very nearly tripped over him.

“Hundreds? Killed by a dragon?” Tas was aghast. “What do you mean hundreds of kender died in Kendermore? I never heard that. I never heard anything like that! It’s not true. You’re lying. . . No,” he added miserably. “I take that back. You can’t lie. You’re a Knight and while you may not like me you’re honor-bound not to lie to me.”

Gerard said nothing. Putting his hand on Tas’s shoulder he turned the kender around bodily and started him, once again, on his way.

Tas noticed a queer feeling in the vicinity of his heart a constricting kind of feeling, as if he’d swallowed one of the more ferocious constricting snakes. The feeling was uncomfortable and not at all pleasant. Tas knew in that moment that the Knight had indeed spoken truly. That hundreds of his people had died most horribly and painfully. He did not know, how this had happened, but he knew it was true, as true as the grass growing along the side of the road or the tree branches overhead or the sun gleaming down through the green leaves.

It was true in this world where Caramon’s funeral had been different from what he remembered. But it hadn’t been true in that other world, the world of Caramon’s first funeral.

“I feel sort of strange,” Tas said in a small voice. “Kind of dizzy. Like I might throw up. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to be quiet for awhile.”

“Praise be,” said the Knight, adding, with another shove.

“Keep walking.”

They walked in silence and eventually, about mid-morning, reached Solace Bridge. The bridge spanned Solace Stream, an easy-going, meandering brook that wandered around the foothills of the Sentinel Mountains and then tumbled blithely through South Pass until it reached the White Rage River. The bridge was wide in order to accommodate wagons and teams of horses as well as foot traffic.

In the old days, the bridge had been free for the use of the traveler, but as traffic increased over the bridge, so did the maintenance and the upkeep of the span. The Solace city fathers grew weary of spending tax money to keep the bridge in operation and so they erected a tollgate and added a toll-taker. The fee required was modest. Solace Stream was shallow, you could walk across it in places, and travelers could always cross at other fords along the route. However, the banks through which the stream ran were steep and slippery. More than one wagon load of valuable merchandise had ended up in the water. Most travelers elected to pay the toll.

The Knight and the kender were the only ones crossing this time of day. The toll-taker was eating breakfast in his booth. Two horses were tied up beneath a stand of cottonwood trees that grew along the bank. A young lad who looked and smelled like a stable hand dozed on the grass. One of the horses was glossy black, his coat gleamed in the sunlight. He was restive, pawed the ground and occasionally gave a jerk on the reins as a test to see if he could free himself. The other mount was a small pony, dapple gray, with a bright eye and twitching ears and nose. Her hooves were almost completely covered by long strands of fur.

The constricting snake around Tas’s heart eased up a good deal at the sight of the pony, who seemed to regard the kender with a friendly, if somewhat mischievous, eye.

“Is she mine!” Tas asked, thrilled beyond belief.

“No,” said Gerard. “The horses have been hired for the journey, that is all.”

He kicked at the stable hand, who woke up and, yawning and scratching at himself, said that they owed him thirty steel for the horses, saddles, and blankets, ten of which would be given back to them upon the animals’ safe return. Gerard took out his money purse and counted out the coin. The stable hand—keeping as far from Tasslehoff as possible—counted the money over again distrustfully, deposited it in a sack and stuffed the sack in his straw-covered shirt.

“What’s the pony’s name?” asked Tasslehoff, delighted.

“Little Gray,” said the stable hand.

Tas frowned. “That doesn’t show much imagination. I think you could have come up with something more original than that. What’s the black horse’s name?”

“Blackie,” replied the stable hand, picking his teeth with a straw.

Tasslehoff sighed deeply.

The tollbooth keeper emerged from his little house. Gerard handed him the amount of the toll. The keeper raised the gate.

This done, he eyed the Knight and kender with intense curiosity and seemed prepared to spend the rest of the morning discussing where the two were headed and why.

Gerard answered shortly, “yay” or “nay” as might be required. He hoisted Tasslehoff onto the pony, who swiveled her head to look back at him and winked at him as if they shared some wonderful secret. Gerard placed the mysterious bundle and the sword wrapped in the blanket on the back of his own horse, tied them securely. He took hold of the reins of Tas’s pony and mounted his own horse, then rode off, leaving the toll-taker standing on the bridge talking to himself.

The Knight rode in front, keeping hold of the pony’s reins. Tas rode behind, his manacled hands holding tight to the pommel of the saddle. Blackie didn’t seem to like the gray pony much better than Gerard liked the kender. Perhaps Blackie was resentful of the slow pace he was forced to set to accommodate the pony or perhaps he was a horse of a stern and serious nature who took umbrage at a certain friskiness exhibited by the pony. Whatever the reason, if the black horse caught the gray pony doing a little sideways shuffle for the sheer fun of it, or if he thought she might be tempted to stop and nibble at some buttercups on the side of the road, he would turn his head and regard her and her rider with a cold eye.

They had ridden about five miles when Gerard called a halt.

He stood in his saddle, looked up and down the road. They had not met any travelers since they had left the bridge, and now the road was completely empty. Dismounting, Gerard removed his cloak and rolling it up, he stuffed it in his bedroll. He was wearing the black breastplate decorated with skulls and the death lily of a Dark Knight.

“What a great disguise!” Tas exclaimed, charmed. “You told Lord Warren you were going to be a Knight and you didn’t lie. You just didn’t tell him what sort of Knight you were going to become. Do I get to be disguised as a Dark Knight? I mean a Neraka Knight? Oh, no, I get it! Don’t tell me. I’m going to be your prisoner!” Tasslehoff was quite proud of himself for having figured this out. “This is going to be more fun—er, interesting—than I’d expected.”

Gerard did not smile. “This is not a joy ride, kender,” he said and his voice was stern and grim. “You hold my life and your own in your hands, as well as the fate of our mission. I must be a fool, to trust something so important to one of your kind, but I have no choice. We will soon be entering the territory controlled by the Knights of Neraka. If you breathe a word about my being a Solamnic Knight, I will be arrested and executed as a spy. But first, before they kill me, they will torture me to find out what I know. They use the rack to torture people. Have you ever seen a man stretched upon the rack, kender?”

“No, but I saw Caramon do calisthenics once, and he said that was torture. . . .”

Gerard ignored him. “They tie your hands and feet to the rack and then pull them in opposite directions. Your arms and legs, wrists and elbows, knees and ankles are pulled from their sockets. The pain is excruciating, but the beauty of the torture is that though the victim suffers terribly, he doesn’t die. They can keep a man on the rack for days. The bones never return to their proper place. When they take a man off the rack, he is a cripple. They have to carry him to the scaffold, put him in a chair in order to hang him. That will be my fate if you betray me, kender. Do you understand ?”

“Yes, Sir Gerard,” said Tasslehoff. “And even though you don’t like me, which I have to tell you really hurts my feelings, I wouldn’t want to see you stretched on the rack. Maybe someone else—because I never saw anyone’s arm pulled out of its socket before—but not you.”

Gerard did not appear impressed by this magnanimous offer.

“Keep a curb on your tongue for your sake as well as mine.”

“I promise,” said Tas, putting his hand to his topknot and giving it a painful yank that brought tears to his eyes. “I can keep a secret, you know. I’ve kept any number of secrets—important secrets, too. I’ll keep this one. You can depend on me or my name’s not Tasslehoff Burrfoot.”

This appeared to impress Gerard even less. Looking very dour, he returned to his horse, remounted and rode forward—a Dark Knight leading his prisoner.

“How long will it take us to reach Qualinesti?” Tas asked.

“ At this pace, four days,” Gerard replied.

Four days. Gerard paid no more attention to the kender. The Knight refused to answer a single question. He was deaf to Tasslehoff’s very best and most wonderful stories, and did not bother to respond when Tas suggested that he knew a most exciting short cut through Darken Wood.

“Four days of this! I don’t like to complain,” Tas said, talking to himself and the pony since the Knight wasn’t listening, “but this adventure is turning out to be dull and boring. Not really an adventure at all, more of a drudge, if that is a word, which whether it is or not certainly fits the situation.”

He and the pony plodded along, looking forward to four days with no one to talk to, nothing to do, nothing to see except trees and mountains, which would have been interesting if Tas could have spent some time exploring them, but, as he couldn’t, he’d seen plenty of trees and mountains at a distance before. So bored was the kender that the next time the magical device came back to him, appearing suddenly in his manacled hands, Tasslehoff was tempted to use it. Anything, even getting squished by a giant, would be better than this.

If it hadn’t been for the pony ride, he would have.

At that moment, the black horse looked around to regard the pony balefully and perhaps some sort of communication passed between horse and rider for Gerard turned around too.

Grinning sheepishly and shrugging, Tas held up the Device of Time Journeying.

His face fixed and cold as that of the skull on his black breastplate, Gerard halted, waited for the pony to plod up beside him.

He reached out his hand, snatched the magical device from Tas’s hands, and, without a word, thrust the device in a saddlebag.

Tasslehoff sighed again. It was going to be a long four days.