Lord Soth

Chapter 23

A kender father stood on the front steps of his cottage on the outskirts of the village of Mid-O-Hylo, watching the fog-like clouds descend from the high mountains in the west and the low mountains in the east.

The light gray mist was covering the land in a shroud that, unlike other fogs he had seen, seemed very dark and gloomy.

"What's happening father?" asked the kender's young son as he ran up the path toward the cottage, his ponytail bobbing and swishing behind him.

"Something." "What something?" asked the boy.

"Something," repeated the kender. "But what something, I do not know."

"Something strange, I bet," said the boy, watching the mist continue to invade the lands surrounding the village, further blotting out the light from the sun.

"Yes," said the kender.

"Something weird, I'd say."

"Yes."

"It reminds me a lot of the snowy crystal glass I found in the hand of that sleeping knight on our last trip to Thelgaard." The elder kender said nothing, his eyes fixed on the mist. The swirling tendrils of smoke-like fog seemed to have taken hold of him, quashing his usually carefree attitude.

It was an attitude that had served him well for all of his years, even when things had looked most grim.

For the first time in his life, the kender knew fear.

"Get inside the cottage," the kender told his son.

"But this is creepy, father," said the young one. "Can't we stay out and watch the fog some more?"

The kender began to step backward in the direction of his home. His son, however, remained where he stood, waving his hand through the mist as if trying to catch it between his fingers.

"All right," said the father. "You can stay outside and watch it if you like, but I'm going inside to watch it through the windows. It looks even spookier that way."

"Spookier?" said the youngster. "I want to see. Let me in."

The young kender gleefully ran into the house, followed closely by his somber father.

When they were both inside, the father shut the door and locked it tight for the first time since he'd installed the shiny brass lock that he'd found improperly appreciated in the door of a tavern in Caergoth.

He knew he was insulting the door's purpose by locking it, but he was much too afraid of the overspreading doom-filled pall to care.