Kendermore

by Mary Kirchoff

  There was virtually no such thing as a completed, or even a through, street. Roads just ended wherever their builders grew tired of them or, more often, wherever someone decided to erect a building. The city was a maze of dead-end streets that simply ran head-on into buildings and then started up again on the other side. Often you had to go several miles out of your way to continue on a road that you could have hit with a rock from where you started, if only you could have seen it.

  Kendermore had an extensive street sign program. There were signs on every corner, naming roads and pointing the way to numerous landmarks, such as the homes of local celebrities or public squares. These signs would have been very helpful if they were updated in a timely manner when new roads were built or after buildings had been plunked down on existing roads. It was not uncommon to see a signpost with two arrows pointed in opposite directions and both reading, “The Palace.” Part of the reason the sign changes came so slowly and inaccurately was the process used by city workmen to complete these tasks. The previous day, Phineas had watched a team of kender workmen replace the sign over a public square.

  The foreman stood back from the rest, his arms crossed while he issued orders. “Now, Jessel, you get on Bildar’s shoulders, Giblart on Jessel, Sterpwitz on Giblart, and Leverton, you’re on top.” The foreman tilted his creased face back and surveyed the distance. Satisfied, he nodded. “Yep, that oughta be tall enough.”

  Like members of an acrobatic team, the kender set about forming a tower of bodies. Phineas knew kender owned ladders, but they seemed to prefer living kender pyramids. Deft as any circus acrobats, they passed one another upward until they reached the desired height and the kender named Leverton was on top.

  “Oops, you forgot the hammer,” the foreman called. One by one, the kender passed each other back down. Reaching the bottom, Leverton took the hammer from his foremean, and the stacking process had commenced again.

  Phineas had been reduced to spending the night on a bench in front of a habberdasher’s, having exhausted the entire day following one sign after another.

  Begging an apple from a friendly greengrocer next to the haberdasher, he limped down the street now, his left leg more than an inch taller than his bootless right. He could have sworn he’d passed this way before, for he seemed to recognize shop fronts and even a little park across the way, but he followed an arrow that supposedly led to the palace.

  Suddenly, in mid-block, an arrow pointed across the street and into a candlemaker’s shop. Puzzled, Phineas stood in the stoop under the shop’s sign and looked several times from the arrow to the interior of the shop strung with candles. Surely this couldn’t be the palace—could it?

  Abruptly the door swung open and a female kender in a wax-spattered apron stepped out. Kicking a brick into place to hold the door open, she said, “My first customer of the morning always gets a special on the big beeswax candles. Normally one copper a piece, but you can have three for six copper.” She squinted at the human and added, “You look terrible, mister. Did you know you’re missing a boot? Wanna swap for it?”

  “Yes, I know,” he said lethargically “And I’m not interested in swapping my boot for any candles this morning, thank you. But I would like to know why the sign across the street says that this is the way to the palace.”

  “ ’Cause this is,” she said curtly.

  “This is the palace?” Phineas barked in disbelief.

  “No, this is the way to the palace,” she said with exaggerated forbearance. “It’s a daytime shortcut when I’m open. If you want to go the other way, go way back to City Hall, take a left, then five or six more lefts, and a few rights after that. It should only take you a half-day or so to get there.” She stepped back into her shop.

  Phineas followed her, suddenly earnest. “I’ll take the shortcut, then, thank you. Where do I go, right through this door?” he asked, pointing to an opening in the back of the shop.

  “Yes, then just crawl out the window there. You’ll be on Mulberry Street—or is it Strawberry Street? I can never remember. Keep going until you get to the statue of somebody or other. Or maybe it’s a tree, sometimes they look so much alike, don’t you agree? Anyway, just go past that and turn right. You’ll see the palace at the end of the street.” She held out her hand, palm up. “That’ll be ten copper.”

  “Ten copper?!” he cried. “For letting me crawl out your window and telling me that trees and statues look alike?”

  “It’s a long way back to City Hall.” She smiled.

  “The fact of the matter is,” noted Phineas unhappily, “I don’t have any cash at the moment.”

  She looked at his feet. “As I was saying, that’s a fine-looking boot you have there.”

  “Yeah, it sure was,” he muttered to himself as he pulled it off and handed it to her, secretly slipping the rat bone into the cuff of his sleeve. “It used to be part of a matched set.”

  She rubbed the toe reverently. “This will be a superb place to keep my money. Here, take a candle, too,” she said generously, thrusting a thick, lumpy, beige one into his hand.

  Maybe he could use it for ear plugs, he thought. Holding the candle awkwardly, Phineas thanked her and left to find the window at back. Pulling a crate under it, he scrambled over the sill and dropped to the ground on the other side. Sharp, pointy stones bit into the tender flesh of his white soles as he hobbled through a weedy vacant lot toward the nearest street.

  For one block, its name was, in fact, Mulberry Street. Then it became Strawberry Boulevard. The buildings were coming farther and farther apart, so he reasoned that he must be nearing the city limits, whatever side of Kendermore he was on.

  At last he came to a lush, overgrown public square. The ground was blanketed in fallen leaves of every color. Perched on a pedestal was a tree. Or was it a statue? He was beginning to think like a kender! Stepping forward, he thumped it. Stone. It was a statue of a tree. Rounding the corner of the statue, he looked down the street to the right.

  There, at the end of the short street, he saw the most unKendermore-like setting in the entire city. In the first place, the palace looked finished, at least from where Phineas stood. In the second place, it didn’t share that “crates and barrels smashed together on a grand scale” look that so many architects in Kendermore seemed to favor. While the “smashed barrels” style was interesting to look at, it was not beautiful.

  But this building was beautiful to Phineas’s eye. It looked more like buildings found in the human cities he had visited and lived in before, but the flavor was slightly different, slightly exotic.

  Stretching out before the front steps of the structure was a long, cool reflecting pool, edged by an expertly shaped topiary garden. Hedges were cut into the forms of animals, including dogs, cats, horses, and even mythical dragons. The shrubs were just beginning to turn brown at the tips, which made the animals look fuzzy.

  Unconsciously, Phineas ran over the rough street to stand at the end of the reflecting pool. Eyes agog, he looked up at the palace. A central dome enclosed the body of the building, made of the smoothest white marble. An inestimable number of turrets surrounded the big dome, each capped by onion-domed minarets. Every landing—and there were dozens of all sizes—was supported by intricately carved arches that came to gentle points.

  The whole vision was one of such consistent and soothing symmetry that Phineas could not help but wonder if he had, in fact, somehow departed Kendermore.

  Then he saw an aged kender wearing muddy, knee-high boots, with a small hedge-clipper tucked into his white hair. The kender pushed a wheelbarrow up to a topiary of a bear and stopped.

  “Excuse me,” stammered Phineas, still awed by the building before him. “This … this is the palace, isn’t it?”

  The kender released the wheelbarrow’s handles and turned around to look at the human. “This’s it, yes, sir,” he said. “Only one like it in Kendermore.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Unless you know of another, that is.”

  �
�No,” replied Phineas. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The kender continued to eye him. “In Kendermore or anywhere else,” he added.

  “Well, that’s good to know,” announced the kender. “I like to keep on top of things like that. Enjoy yourself. Try not to break anything.” The kender took the shears from his hair and snipped twice at the bear. Nodding with satisfaction, he replaced the clippers, picked up his wheelbarrow again, and continued on his way.

  “Wait!” shouted Phineas. “Can you tell me something about this place? I’ve spent two days trying to find it!”

  The kender stopped again and turned around. “Two days?” he exclaimed. “Where did you start looking—Silvanost? There are signs everywhere.”

  “Yes, I know,” Phineas sighed. “I’ve seen them all. Unfortunately, the only sign that helped at all was an unlikely one that sent me through the middle of a candle shop.”

  “Oh, yes, down on Elderberry Street,” said the kender, nodding. “That’s an excellent shortcut. I like to get there first thing in the morning for their big beeswax candle special.” He spotted a thistle in the grass, stooped to dig it out, then saw Phineas’s feet. “Say, did you know you aren’t wearing any shoes?”

  “Yes, I know.” The sun was beginning to peak over the palace, and Phineas had to squint to see the kender. “Is this the mayor’s home? It’s exceptionally grand.”

  “Nope,” the kender said with a shake of his head, “the mayor doesn’t live here. No one does, except prisoners now and then.”

  “That’s why I’m here!” Phineas exclaimed.

  “Oh,” responded the kender, “are you checking in as a prisoner?”

  Phineas scratched his chest for a moment, puzzled by the kender’s question. “No,” he responded simply. Spying a bench, Phineas hobbled over to it and plopped down. He rested a moment under the kender’s curious gaze.

  “My name is Phineas Curick,” he began. “I’ve been trying for two days to find this palace because I need to talk to Trapspringer Furrfoot, whom I understand is being held a prisoner within. There. Now, who are you?”

  “Bigelow Spadestomper, your friend and acquaintance.” He extended his small, muddy hand. “I am the groundskeeper and gardener here at the palace, the fourth Spadestomper groundskeeper in as many Spadestomper generations. And, yes, there is a Trapspringer in residence at the moment. I believe that’s him leaning out the window, there on the second floor.”

  Phineas looked up and, sure enough, there was the kender he recognized as Trapspringer Furrfoot leaning out an arched window, casually cleaning his fingernails with a small knife. Phineas paused for a moment, unsure what to make of this. The human had expected to find the kender locked in a cell or some similarly unpleasant place. Yet here was Trapspringer, lounging out an open window on the second floor of a palace. Bigelow caught the baffled look on the human’s face.

  “Oh, yes, sir, I see you’re wondering why he’s there on the second floor,” he said. Phineas nodded slowly. “Unfortunately for Mr. Furrfoot, the grand suite on the third floor was unavailable, seeing as how it’s being used by some visiting blue bloods in from Balifor. Still, the second floor is comfortable enough, in an opulent sort of way.”

  Phineas looked from Trapspringer to the gardener and asked, “How do I speak with the prisoner?”

  Bigelow looked at him strangely. “Why, you just walk in that door, go up the stairs, and find him. How do you humans usually talk to prisoners? Say hello to dear Trapspringer for me. Pleasant fellow, and so smart! I’ve finished weeding the flower beds here, so I’m off. Good-bye!” In a few moments, Bigelow was engulfed by the blinding yellow sunrise creeping around the right corner of the palace.

  “Good-bye,” Phineas said limply, watching him go. He set off for the door the gardener had indicated. Passing a flower bed, he noticed that nearly all the flowering plants had been uprooted and that weeds grew abundantly but neatly within the confines of the bed. The human would never get used to that peculiar kender gardening technique.

  Phineas walked quickly down the right side of the reflecting pool to the stairs at the base of the central dome. The cool marble was soothing on his blistered feet.

  Before long, though, he pressed on up the flight of pristine, white stairs, which ended at a platform. The entrance to the palace proper was up one more short flight of stairs. An ornately carved archway at least as high as thirty men opened into another one at least half as tall. There was no door, only a recessed archway.

  Abruptly, Phineas found himself inside the elaborate palace. The first thing that struck him was that, if possible, it looked larger inside than out, yet he was certain he was seeing only a fraction of the building. Way off in the distance above him, the inside of the dome looked like a crystal-clear night sky, either from black paint splashed with white to look like stars, or from an absence of light so far from the large but sheltered windows. Still, the effect was the same, tranquil and quiet and ice cold.

  To either side of the dome, where the ceiling leveled off, two softly circling stairways led to the floors above. Phineas chose a staircase and began climbing. The marble was smooth and moist in the darkness of the palace, and Phineas was almost to the first-floor landing when he heard a familiar voice echoing from below him.

  “Hellooo! Where are you going? Nobody up there but some boring snobs from Balifor. They aren’t friends of yours, are they?”

  Phineas leaned over the railing and looked to the bottom of the stairs. There stood Trapspringer Furrfoot, still dressed in his midnight-purple leggings and cape, but with a bright orange shirt and a large, floppy cap. The human flew back down the steps.

  “Oh, it’s you!” Trapspringer cried upon seeing Phineas’s face. He took his hand and pumped it vigorously. “How wonderful to see you! And how friendly of you to come all this way for a visit!”

  “You remember me?” asked Phineas, astounded. Hope blossomed. Perhaps getting the other half of the map wouldn’t be as difficult as Phineas had feared.

  “How could I forget the person who saved my life?” Trapspringer asked, almost offended. “That bone you gave me is marvelous, almost better than my last one. I’ve had nothing but good luck since I got it.”

  And I’ve had nothing but bad luck, Phineas thought to himself, but instead he said, “That’s why I’m here, Mr. Furrfoot.”

  Trapspringer turned away possessively, his eyes wide. “You’re not here to take it back, are you?”

  “Of course not, Mr. Furrfoot!” Phineas assured him smoothly. “I’m a doctor! I would never jeopardize a patient’s life, no matter what.”

  “Well, I’m certainly very relieved to hear that. You shouldn’t fool around with a person’s good-luck charm, you know,” Trapspringer lectured. “Did you know that good-luck charms have existed since the beginning of time—as long as the Towers of High Sorcery, anyway. Back then, powerful magicians would endow worthless pieces of junk with slight magical abilities, or sometimes just good vibrations.” Trapspringer accompanied his story with appropriately magical gestures. “Then they would sell them to anyone who happened by with enough money, just so they could eat.”

  “If these magicians were so powerful, why didn’t they just conjure up some food?” Phineas asked, stumped by the moral of the story.

  No kender had ever asked that before. “It’s a story,” Trapspringer replied temperamentally, “it doesn’t have to be logical.” But Trapspringer frowned; one of his favorite items of little-known information had been rendered suspect.

  Sensing that he may have blundered, Phineas rushed ahead. “You’re probably right. Anyway, I didn’t come here to take your luck charm, I came here to add to it.”

  The kender turned around and smiled, an interested gleam in his tilted, olive-green eyes.

  With a gesture, Phineas let the bone fragment slip from his cuff. “I offer you this magnificent specimen, found frozen and preserved in the cold wastelands south of Ice Mountain Bay.” Reverently, the human held the bone up
in his palm. “The rare sixth metatarsal”—was that a bone or a tooth? he wondered—“of an extinct Hyloian woolly mammoth. Nothing short of a mage with great ability can provide a more powerful luck charm.”

  Scarcely breathing, Trapspringer gingerly lifted the bleached white bone and held it lovingly in his hand. “I can feel the good luck in it! Oh, thank you! How very nice of you. Say, doesn’t it look a lot like my lycanthropic minotaur bone?” he asked guilelessly, pulling a necklace chain from under his orange shirt. He held up the bone at the end for inspection.

  “Yes, I certainly see some similarities,” Phineas agreed quickly. “But it’s not what the bone looks like that’s important, is it? Its ability to provide good luck is what you’re interested in.”

  “I see what you mean!” Turning both bones over and over in his hands, Trapspringer strutted happily. “Well, thank you very much again,” he said in dismissal. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to—”

  “There is,” the human interrupted him. “You collect bones. I collect maps. How did you know that when you gave me that expertly crafted one as payment the other night? I was wondering if you had any more from that period?” Here was where he had to tread lightly. “Actually, the map you gave me was of only half of Kendermore. Was that merely an oversight?”

  Trapspringer looked genuinely surprised. “Are you sure? I didn’t think I had any ‘half maps.’ That was one of Uncle Bertie’s, you know, although I’m not sure who he was, or if he was even my uncle. Isn’t it rather odd for humans to collect things, particularly maps? My nephew’s family collects them, but then that’s what they do—make maps, that is.”

  Phineas’s brain ached. His business was conning kender, not trying to figure out how kender were conning him.

  “Yes, it is a bit of an odd hobby for a human,” he agreed at last. “But I’ve been living among you kender for some time now, and I guess your better habits are rubbing off on me. Next to money, maps just seemed the most useful thing to collect. Particularly a map of Kendermore, since I live here. Now, how about the other half of that map?” Phineas pulled his section out and showed the kender how streets and their names were cut off midway along the frayed edge.