Kendermore
Page 1
DRAGONLANCE® Preludes
Before the War of the Lance …
Before they became heroes …
Darkness and Light
Paul B. Thompson &
Tonya C. Cook
Kendermore
Mary Kirchoff
Brothers Majere
Kevin Stein
Riverwind the Plainsman
Paul B. Thompson &
Tonya C. Cook
Flint the King
Mary Kirchoff &
Douglas Niles
Tanis, the Shadow Years
Scott Siegel &
Barbara Siegel
KENDERMORE
Preludes • Volume Two
©1989 TSR, Inc.
©2003 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.
DRAGONLANCE, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, their respective logos, and TSR, Inc. are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Cover art by: Mark Zug
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6330-0
640-A1587000-001-EN
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v3.1
To Steve, who helped me immensely and without complaint and exhibited considerably more patience than I might have managed if the roles were reversed.
And to Alexander, the light of my life, who, despite seeing me only at dinner for months on end, still remembered to call me Mommy.
Contents
Cover
Other Books in the Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Prologue
Part I Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part II Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part III Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
Prologue
Late afternoon was a peaceful time at the Inn of the Last Home in the village of Solace. Three friends sat at their favorite table near the inn’s fireplace, making plans.
“Where do you think you’ll go first, Tas?” The speaker was Tanis Half-Elven, who relaxed with his chin cupped in his hand and his elbow propped on the dark, oak table.
Across the table from Tanis sat his kender friend, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Next to Tasslehoff was the burly dwarf, Flint Fireforge.
The smell of smoke hovered about the kender’s nose. It clung to all forty-eight inches of his childlike frame, from the toes of his blue leggings to the very tip of his topknot of ginger-colored hair. The familiar scent comforted him, for he was just a smidgeon sad; soon he would be leaving his closest friends for five years, which was a very long time. Their tight-knit group of seven had decided to part and meet again—five years to the day—after they’d learned what they could about rumors of war in the land, as well as solve some personal problems.
“I haven’t thought much about where I’m going yet,” the kender said vaguely. “Wherever the wind blows me, I guess.” Raising an empty flagon upside-down, Tasslehoff threw his head back and waited for the last dollop of flavorful foam to slide slowly into his waiting mouth. At last, the froth drizzled out with a “plop!”
Smacking his lips in satisfaction, he wiped them with the edge of his fur-trimmed sleeve. Squinting against the haze in the dimly lit taproom, he looked at Tanis. “Friends all over Krynn have been waiting for my next visit, though!” Tasslehoff pushed his empty mug to the edge of the table for refilling.
Flint’s eyes twinkled merrily under his bushy, gray-black brows. “I’ll bet they’ve been waiting! And I’ll bet they’ve kept busy, too, working on kender-proof door locks!” Beneath his huge bulb of a nose and wild, peppery moustache, the old dwarf’s mouth opened wide with laughter, setting his fleshy cheeks to jiggling. Even Tanis, ever the peacemaker, could not help smirking behind his hand.
“Oh, do you think so, really?” Tasslehoff cried earnestly. As he smiled, his young face broke into a thousand tiny, spreading creases, like a shattered pane of stained glass. Facial wrinkles were a characteristic shared by all kender, which made it very difficult to accurately guess a kender’s age. “Most locks nowadays are so flimsy—no protection at all! I don’t know how anyone expects to keep anything safe anymore.”
“No one does if kender are about,” Flint snorted under his breath. He could tell from Tanis’s warning glance that the elf’s sharp ears had caught his words. Tanis liked to defend the kender against Flint’s gratuitous insults, even if Tas was never in the least truly offended.
Two of Flint’s fingers, tightly pressed together, disappeared under his moplike moustache, and he blew a loud, sharp whistle. The inn was not busy, so in no time the innkeeper’s adopted daughter appeared. She was a rosy-cheeked girl with eager eyes and short-cropped, dark, curly hair. Though a slight breeze blew through large cracks in the inn’s few arched, stained-glass windows—in a few weeks they would be doubly covered with oiled parchment to keep out the winter—the weather on this day was unseasonably warm for early fall. Flint called it “summer’s last dance.” Coupled with the heat from the ever-present fire in the hearth, the heavy air had pasted the girl’s hair to her forehead and moistened her coarse, graying tunic to her back.
“Yes, sir?” she inquired eagerly. Her voice carried none of the weariness so common among seasoned serving wenches. In a few years, Flint thought sadly, when the impertinence and unwanted attentions of too many men wore her down …
“Tika, isn’t it?” he asked, and she nodded. Flint smiled encouragingly. “Then, Tika, I need two more—” Tanis quickly drained the last of his own mug and pushed it forward. “—make that three more mugs of Otik’s fine ale,” Flint corrected himself. “On me.”
“Very good, sir.” Tika’s willowy form bobbed once, then darted skillfully through the closely spaced tables to the bar.
The Inn of the Last Home was shaped like the letter “L.” The ceiling was low, making the room cozy for small groups, though sometimes on very busy nights it just seemed cramped. The walls were built of thick, dark beams sealed with a thin mixture of tar, which gave off a heavy, musky scent that was pleasantly familiar to the inn’s regular pat
rons. Small, round tables filled the room, though Otik had also included one long table with benches to encourage conversation among strangers.
The kitchen, a noisy, bustling place, was at the foot of the L. The sounds of pans rattling and the cook screaming, and the enticing scent of Otik’s renowned spiced potatoes, were not unusual at any hour.
What was unusual was that the inn was built in the mighty branches of a vallenwood tree, a graceful, fast-growing giant that seemed to thrive around Solace. In fact, the entire town, except for the stables and a few other buildings, was all located high above ground in vallenwood trees. The village was unlike any other—breathtakingly beautiful, yet practical for defense. Bridgewalks spiraled to the ground around the trunks and swayed gently in the air between trees, linking together businesses, families, and friends.
The three friends seated before the fire seemed lost in thought as Tika returned with their drinks. The young girl’s eyes lingered on Tanis’s attractive face—the dark, wide-set, brooding eyes, cheekbones seemingly chiseled from marble, and his thick, wavy, red hair, carelessly uncombed. But when her gaze dropped unconsciously to his lean, muscled torso, obvious even through his shirt, her hands grew clumsy and she slopped a bit of ale across the table.
“Oh, I’m sorry … it must be the heat!” she mumbled, jabbing at the spill with the hem of her apron.
“No harm done,” Tas assured her. “It’s really a very small puddle. Actually, I’m impressed that you hit the table at all, considering the way you were staring at—”
“Thank you, Tika,” piped Flint, drowning out the rest of the kender’s all-too-honest proclamation. Tika flushed crimson and, grateful for the dismissal, dashed into the shadows of the kitchen.
“Tas, you shouldn’t have embarrassed her like that,” Flint scolded the kender.
“Embarrassed who? Whatever do you mean? Oh, Tika!” Tas finally caught Flint’s meaning. “It’s not my fault if she fills mugs to the brim, although”—he shrugged—“personally I like that in a girl.” Tas scooped a fingerful of foam from the top of one of the mugs and guided it into his mouth.
Flint rolled his eyes in mock disgust. “There’s not a bit of common sense in that head of yours sometimes. You shouldn’t have pointed out that she was staring at Tanis.”
Tas looked puzzled. “But girls always stare at Tanis. Have you seen some of the looks Kitiara gives him? Why, sometimes I get so embarrassed it’s hard to watch! Kit never seems to feel ashamed, though. I wonder why …”
“Uh-hmmm!” Tanis cleared his throat loudly, his face suddenly hot. “Would both of you mind not talking about me as if I weren’t here?” He frowned sternly, turning to the unabashed kender. “Tas, what Flint meant was—” Tanis groped for words that might persuade the kender.
“It doesn’t matter,” he sighed at last, seeing Tas’s attentive, childlike expression, curious yet uncomprehending.
“So, Tanis,” Flint said, striving to change the subject, “you haven’t told us where you’re going.” Pulling a chunk of wood and his whittling knife from the depth of the brown leather vest he insisted on wearing in every type of weather, Flint leaned back and began carving details into the miniature form of a half-finished duck.
Tanis stroked his clean-shaven chin and contemplated the fire’s blue flames. “I don’t know … I thought I might wander toward the city of Qualinost,” he said ambiguously, his unblinking eyes burning.
Flint looked up and gave Tanis a meaningful stare. Tanis’s entry into the world had been more difficult than most. His mother, an elf woman raped by a human, had died giving birth to Tanis. The half-breed child was raised by his mother’s brother. Though his uncle treated the boy as one of his own, Tanis never felt truly welcome among humans or elves. And as Tanis grew into manhood, his mixed heritage became even more physically apparent; he was smaller than most humans and larger than most elves.
It was then that he felt the attitude of his elven family change. Everyone except Laurana, that is, whose girlish attentions were not completely unwanted. Which made the tension between Tanis, his uncle, and his uncle’s sons—Laurana’s brothers—even more apparent.
So he had left. The void haunted him, and he knew he must face his uncle—and Laurana—one day. The task was complicated by the fact that the man was not only his uncle, but the Speaker of the Sun, the leader of the Qualinesti Elves.
Flint reached out and squeezed Tanis’s shoulder reassuringly. “You’ll always have a home here, lad.”
Tanis looked away from the flames, giving Flint a smile that was not reflected in those brooding, dark eyes. “I know.” But this was to be a happy parting, and Tanis did not wish to think of Qualinost just now. Not yet.
He flashed Flint a cheery smile. “And if I know you, Flint Fireforge, you’ll spend the whole five years whittling before your hearth.”
Flint sliced an over-large chunk from the wood in his fingers. “And what would be wrong with that?” he asked indignantly. Tanis was sure now that the dwarf intended to do just that.
“Nothing, except that it would be awfully boring after an hour or so,” interjected Tasslehoff, sending sparks flying as he stirred up the fire in the hearth. “You know, Flint, I could stay for a while and keep you company and—”
“And nothing!” Flint cut in, glaring at the kender. “I don’t need any lame-brained kender underfoot! Did it occur to you that maybe I’d like to be a little bored after having you kids cluttering up my hearth for so long!” Tanis found the term “kid” amusing since he was nearly one hundred years old by human reckoning, though he looked twenty. Of course, Flint was no youngster himself—he was in his early one-hundred-forties, which translated to late fifties for a human.
The grizzled dwarf wasn’t finished yet. “Raistlin always brooding, Sturm so blasted stoic, Kitiara forever arm-wrestling with Caramon, or wrestling of another sort with Tanis.…” His gruff expression softened, and he gave the half-elf a good-natured poke in the ribs.
Tas leaned back his chair and propped his feet on the table. “Do you think Sturm has a chance of finding his father in Solamnia?” he asked, suddenly reminded of their friends who had already left. Sturm Brightblade and Kitiara Uth-Matar had left Solace earlier in the day, headed for Solamnia to the north. Sturm was searching for the father he’d been forced to leave as a child, and Kitiara had gone along for the adventure.
“If Sir Brightblade is still alive, I’m sure Sturm will find him,” Tanis said firmly. “He can’t miss with Kit along to help.”
The fire crackled and popped, spitting a hot ember onto Tas’s left leg. With a yelp he was on his feet, leaping around madly. “Ouch! Ouch! Is that why Kit went—to look for Sturm’s father?” he asked, slapping furiously at his smoldering legging.
Tanis, scarcely taken aback by the kender’s acrobatics, replied seriously, “I don’t think Kit knows what she’s looking for.”
The ember extinguished, Tas poked his finger through the black-rimmed hole in his blue leggings. “Well, whatever it is, I’m sure she’ll find it,” he said. “She’s so …”
“Driven?” Tanis completed the sentence.
“Determined, I was going to say,” said the ingenuous kender.
“She is that,” said Tanis with a knowing smile.
“I’m worried about those darn fool brothers of hers,” Flint muttered, “although I don’t know why I bother. And I don’t care what anyone says, Raistlin is too young to be taking that magical test in the Tower of High Sorcery. Gonna get himself killed is all. And poor Caramon—I don’t know what he would do without him.” The twin brothers, Caramon and Raistlin Majere—Kitiara’s half-brothers—had already left as well. Frail Raistlin intended to take the dangerous magic-user’s test in the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, and his burly brother Caramon had insisted on accompanying him for protection.
Tasslehoff looked thoughtful. “I think it’s the other way around,” he said, not intending to sound unkind. “I don’t know what Raistlin would do without
Caramon. Unless, of course, he’s dead.”
“Family.…” was all Tanis said, his thoughts remote.
“That’s it!” Tas exclaimed, jumping to his feet, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “That’s what I’ll do! I’ll go visit my family. Gee, I wonder where any of them are.”
“You don’t know?” Flint asked, looking up from his whittling. “How about your parents?”
“Not exactly, no. Not lately, anyhow.”
“Then, how do you even know whether any of them are still alive?” Tanis asked, sipping his ale.
“Someone would have told me if they weren’t, I guess,” Tas reasoned.
“But if you don’t know where they are, how would anyone know where you are to tell you that someone whose whereabouts you didn’t know had died?” Flint sputtered awkwardly. The dwarf paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Listen to me, now I’m starting to sound like a kender!” he spat.
But Tas was too busy listing off relatives to notice. “There’s Uncle Remo Lockpick, my father’s uncle’s second cousin, I think. He has a wonderful collection of keys—big ones, small ones, heavy ones, ones made of bright blue gems as big as your head.” Tas scratched his chin. “What would anyone use a key like that for?”
Both Flint and Tanis wondered why any kender had need of a key, considering their light-fingered tendencies, but each remained silent.
“And then there’s Uncle Wilfre,” Tas continued thoughtfully, “but no one’s seen him in, oh, well … I guess I’ve never seen him, actually.” He took another pull on his ale before continuing.
“My favorite uncle, though, is my mother’s brother—I think,” Tas said, happily remembering. “He’s a Furrfoot, not a Burrfoot, which is very confusing at family picnics, as you might guess. Anyway, Uncle Trapspringer moved in with my family after his bride died on their honeymoon. At least he assumed she was dead.”
“What do you mean, ‘assumed’?” Tanis exclaimed. “That sounds tragic.”
“Oh, it’s all very romantic, the way Uncle Trapspringer tells it,” Tas began, holding up his mug for a refill. The kender was obviously gearing up for one of his long stories.