The guards were nearing, and Tarscenian was gather shy;ing himself to leap up and confront them when a whistling sound brought him up short. He'd heard that sound somewhere. A hoopak?
"Hey, you hopeless pack of overdecorated ninnies!" The voice was high-pitched and sarcastic. "Did you lose something?"
"It's the kender!" one of the guards cried. "Forget the kender," the captain shouted. "We're look shy;ing for whoever killed …"
"… the bugbear!" Kifflewit interrupted. "That's me. Up here."
Tarscenian raised his head slowly until only a few inches of ferns covered him. He looked up.
There was Kifflewit, leaning far over the edge of a walkway, brown topknot bobbing, waving gaily to the guards. His hand held a familiar-looking dagger, the one the woman from Throtl had wanted to sell. No doubt the kender had "found" it during their adventure in the refugee market earlier in the evening. Tarscenian heard a muffled snort off to his left, and realized Mynx had spied the kender, too.
The captain ordered his men to ignore Kifflewit's taunts. "No kender could kill a bugbear," he scoffed.
"Except this kender had a magic dagger," Kifflewit rejoined. "It was terrific! I didn't even have to hold on to it. It knew the bugbear wanted to hurt me, so it flew across the clearing, smack into the creature! Then it flew right back to me! Isn't that splendid? Want to see it?"
"It's possible," a guard ventured. "We found no weapon."
Kifflewit giggled, leaning even farther over the walk shy;way. "You overpaid losers!" he taunted. "What? Did Hederick get you at a group discount? Cheaper by the dozen? Or do you pay him, so you can pretend you have a job?"
The men began to grumble. This same kender had caused them a bundle of trouble earlier in the night. He'd gotten away before, purely by luck. He dared to ridicule them now?
"Come down here, kender," the captain commanded.
"Ah, no," Kifflewit said, snickering. "I do believe I have an appointment elsewhere. I can't wait to tell my friends how one little kender outwitted two dozen Seeker guards. My, what a good story that will be! Bye-bye, ladies! Don't muss your petticoats during your search!" He waved again happily and scooted off down the walkway.
"Ladies?" the captain exploded.
In an instant, the guards went howling after the kender. Moments later, Tarscenian and Mynx were alone amid the silent ferns. The old man rose stiffly to his feet and found Mynx already upright. "That kender," she said, shaking her head. "I owe him one."
"He's a tough little rascal," Tarscenian concluded softly. "Maybe you and Gaveley ought to recruit him."
Mynx took Tarscenian's hand. "Come on," she said. "We still have a way to go."
Tarscenian started to protest, then found himself pulled down the path. Although the night's activities had left him virtually exhausted, he did his best to keep up with the agile thief.
At long last Mynx stopped. She swung under the low-hanging branches of a thick pine tree and disappeared. Tarscenian dropped to his knees and followed, cursing when a pine needle drove into his shin like a porcupine quill.
There was no sign of the thief.
Then a hand grasped his in the dark. Tarscenian pitched into nothingness, dropped a short distance, and landed with a bone-jarring thump on packed earth. "What in-" he complained. "Now what?"
"I have to say, physical grace is not one of your talents, Tarscenian."
He bit off his reply.
"Follow me, old man."
"Where-?"
"Don't ask questions." A strong hand grasped his again. "Crawl."
He did as Mynx ordered. He was in a tunnel, that much was certain. Every few moments his back grazed a rock or root overhead. Then suddenly he sensed that the space had opened up around him. Mynx whispered, "You may be able to get to your feet now. But be careful."
He could stand up-as long as he bent at the waist. But after creeping along on his hands and knees for so long, half-standing didn't feel half-bad. Mynx hurried him along the tunnel, which curved every few paces. "Who dug this tunnel?" he muttered. "A bunch of drunken dwarves?"
"Not a bad guess," Mynx whispered, chuckling. "It was abandoned when I found it. I cleaned it out and shored it up."
"Where are-?"
Mynx pulled him forward and placed his hand on the rung of a ladder. He could tell by the air that they weren't exactly underground anymore, but where were they? Tarscenian took a deep breath. "Wood?"
His fingers grazed something rough and crumbly. He broke off a piece and sniffed. "Oak?" he murmured. He stood cautiously and began to climb. The ladder curved to the right as it led upward. "We're inside a tree?"
"Of course. This is Solace, remember?" Mynx mut shy;tered, climbing ahead of him in the dark. "Or near enough."
She had halted and seemed to be fumbling with something. A moment later a trapdoor swung open before them. Enough moonlight seeped through a lone curtained window that Tarscenian could make out a chair with a skirt and shirt flung across the back, a mat shy;tress, and a small table with a lantern, three dirty plates, and a half-dozen tiny ceramic vials strewn on it. The furniture occupied most of the floor space in the tiny hollowed-out tree-home.
Mynx kicked her sandals off, nudging them under the table. "Sit," she ordered, removing the clothing from the chair and dropping it on the floor. "I'll be right back. Don't light the lantern." She ducked under a curtain in a second doorway.
Tarscenian ignored the proffered chair and stepped across rough-hewn floorboards littered with pine needles. He peeped through the curtained window. Mynx's minuscule home perched in the branches of a burr oak. Thick pines dotted the landscape. Whether he and Mynx were south, north, or east of Solace, he could not have said. By the Old Gods, I need some rest, he thought.
"May I help you?"
Startled, Tarscenian let the curtain drop and faced the lilting new voice. A blond woman stood in the doorway. She wore chain mail leggings, patched leather armor, and knee-high boots with steel cladding up the front. A tight helm framed her face; the visor was up. He saw ashen hair, high cheekbones, dark eyes, full lips.
"Excuse me," he stammered. "Mynx brought me . . ." He paused. "Rather …" He stopped again. He realized he'd rather be facing the bugbear again than be in this situation. "It's not what you …"
"Mynx?" the woman asked. "Who is Mynx?" She regarded him with a bewildered look. "And what are you doing in my house?"
What trick had Mynx played on him? Obviously she'd abandoned him, but what was her objective? The blond woman wore warrior's garb-was he being held pris shy;oner, then? Never trust a thief, he thought.
He drew his sword.
The woman laughed, pulling off her helmet. Straight blond hair spilled to her shoulders. "Whoever you are, I'm glad you're here," she said merrily. "It's been an age since I've had a man here." She ran her fingers through her ashen hair and smiled.
That gesture.
"Mynx!" Tarscenian shouted. "May the Old Gods damn you to fourteen kinds of Abyss!"
Mynx chuckled. The chuckle became snorts, then helpless guffaws. She dropped into the chair, eyes streaming with tears, while the old man raged.
"Put your sword away, Tarscenian," she finally man shy;aged to say between chortles. "You might decapitate me, and what good would I be to you then?"
He regained control with difficulty. "I see now how you maintained such a tight friendship with a kender," he snapped.
The laughter died away, Tarscenian instantly regret shy;ting his words. But after Mynx wiped away the last tears, she assumed a businesslike tone. "You're under a death sentence," she told him. "You need a disguise, and if I'm going to spend any time with you, so do I. Obviously, this one will do for me, but you …"
She plucked a wooden box from under the table, opening it. Inside Tarscenian found more vials of the type that littered the table, plus a straight-edge razor, a brush, a chunk of brown soap, and dozens of items Tarscenian couldn't identify. She stood and motioned Tarscenian into the chair.
His
joints cried out as he sat down despite his better judgment. "What do you propose?" he snapped. "How do you plan to hide a six-foot-tall bald man with a beard?"
She smiled at his mulish tone. "First of all, the beard has to go."
He tried to jump to his feet, but Mynx's hands were firm on his shoulders. "Never!" he shouted. "I've had this beard for fifty …"
"Then it's high time for a change. Besides," she added with a wicked grin, "where else will we get the hair for your wig? Now sit still."
"Pushy as a … as a bugbear," he muttered. "You remind me of Ancilla at times."
"Who?"
Tarscenian didn't answer.
Mynx shrugged and wet the soap from a dish of water. She rubbed the brush in it until lather festooned the bristles. Then, brush in one hand, long-handled razor in the other, she bent over Tarscenian and set to work.
Chapter 15
"Leave this place! These trees are sacred!"
Halfway between Solace and Erolydon, five centaurs milled agitatedly around ten burly men wielding axes. The men continued to laugh and joke as they chopped away at the base of a vallenwood, which shaded them from the heartless midday sun.
"Horse," one of the men yelled, "if we doesn't cut this tree, Hederick don't pay us none. An' we got families to feed."
"As do I, humans," countered one of the centaurs, the violet-eyed, white one named Phytos. "But thou dost not find me slaying nature's children to feed my young."
The man waved him away. "Don't you love the way they talk?" the woodcutter said to a comrade. They shared a derisive laugh and continued their hacking efforts.
"Stop!" Although the centaurs, two females and three males, held clubs and bows, they did not use them. Shoul shy;dering their way into the circle of woodcutters, they shoved three of the men aside, knocking them off their feet.
"These vallenwoods have flourished here since the days of the Old Gods," shouted Phytos as the trio of humans rose slowly to their feet, retrieving their axes. "We warn thee, wrong-headed humans. Dare not to harm them, lest thou wish to feel our wrath!"
"How about our wrath, horse?" one of the humans cried. All ten, swinging their axes, waded into the cen shy;taurs.
Too late the horse-men brought their clubs into play. A male centaur, hit squarely between the eyes with the dull side of an axehead, collapsed without a sound and did not rise. One of the two female centaurs had just nocked an arrow and fitted it to her bow when a woodcutter's axe blade bit into her neck. She went down screaming, blood spurting, flailing hooves catching a comrade in the leg, arrow wedged uselessly in the vallenwood's bark.
"Retreat!" Phytos called. The centaurs withdrew to the shade of another vallenwood.
The woodcutters did not pursue them, but simply returned to work. "Damned tree lovers," one of the men spat out, hewing at the vallenwood with renewed energy. "If the High Theocrat says we're supposed to chop a tree for his new pavilion, then we does it. What are we sup shy;posed to do?"
The wounded female centaur kicked feebly, gave a sob shy;bing cry, and lay still.
"Phytos, please thou let me slay the bastards with arrows," cried the remaining female centaur, who from her lilac eyes and silvery hair looked to be a close relative of the centaur leader. "I can do it easily from here. They have naught but those axes. It would be quick work."
Phytos shook his head. "Nay, Feelding. The Seekers have long sought reasons to send their minions against the centaur community. We have harmed none of Heder-ick's people yet, given them no real reason to badger us. Let things remain that way for now."
"But they killed two of our own!" Feelding protested.
Phytos closed his eyes, nodded, and bowed his head in mute prayer. After a moment the two other centaurs fol shy;lowed suit. When they lifted their heads, their angular faces were wet but resolute. "We will go directly to Heder-ick of the Seekers," Phytos said. "Perhaps he does not know what his men do in his name."
"He knows, all right," the female centaur said ven shy;omously. "And he encourages it."
Phytos regarded her with sad violet eyes. "Perhaps. But we will not provoke war if we can avoid it. I would fear to see our small community in the woods take on an entire city of humans. Feelding, Salomar," he said, addressing his companions, "I cannot order thee about like servants. Wilt thou, friends, go with me to this Erolydon to petition the High Theocrat, or wilt thou wait here or, perhaps, pro shy;ceed home?"
"Go with thee, of course," both replied. Phytos and the others turned as one to go.
Just then, the axes bit a crucial portion from the trunk of the vallenwood. The men scattered, shouting. The huge tree teetered and creaked, and for an instant those on the ground could not tell which way the behemoth would fall. There was a moment of breathless suspense, then the enormous tree fell-hesitantly at first, then gaining speed-toward the east.
Suddenly the clearing that had been shaded was flooded with the jarring light of noonday. The three centaurs looked on, faces pained, their lips moving in silent prayer. The ten humans, however, cheered as they tossed their sweat-drenched handkerchiefs into the air in jubilation.
As the trunk of the vallenwood smashed into the ground, a wailing split the air. The woodcutters ceased their celebration and stood stunned.
"What is it?" the centaur Salomar cried.
"The tree, I believe," Phytos replied with a frown. "It does not die easily."
At that instant, as men and centaurs stared, a mist arose from the form of the dying tree. A pale image of the tree, the fog hovered ghostlike above the vallenwood. The woodcutters dropped their axes and backed away, fear in their faces.
Then a misty figure rose from the vaporous tree, like a corpse sitting up in a coffin. The men cried out and ran, but the centaurs continued to stand where they had, bow shy;ing their heads. "We honor thee, o specter of the wood," Phytos murmured. "We witness thy pain and feel it."
The figure's face was contorted, its limbs drawn up against its torso as if it were in agony. Suddenly it reached trembling hands toward the sky, as if to beseech some unseen force. A moan reverberated through the clearing. Feliton kay … The wraith faltered, pressed a hand to its brow, and tried again. I, Calcidon … Feliton kay…
Then the apparition clenched its fists and slumped for shy;ward. Both it and the mist above the fallen vallenwood dissipated.
"Phytos, what was that?" Salomar repeated.
Phytos shook his head.
"Its face was elven," Feelding said softly, "and it wore a robe. A mage? But what was a wizard doing in a … ?" She fell silent. The three exchanged uneasy looks before she spoke again. "Friends, I am newly frightened."
The others said nothing, but all three pivoted on swift hooves, then broke into a canter. They headed north, toward Erolydon.
Kifflewit Burrthistle stood in the shadows of a vallen-wood, across from the gate of Erolydon, and pondered what to do. He wasn't exactly in the good graces of the temple guards anymore. He'd led them in a delightful chase all around Solace for an hour last night before tiring of the game and losing them with ease.
Tarscenian had spoken so feelingly of the Diamond Dragon. Kifflewit just had to see it. Just one look, he promised himself, and then he would put it back where he'd found it. Honest.
Unless, of course, where he'd found it wasn't handy or safe anymore. In some cases such an artifact would be safer with someone who would guard it zealously. Some shy;one like Kifflewit Burrthistle.
But how to get into the temple? He was still musing about the problem and absentmindedly running his fin shy;gers through his brown topknot when three centaurs can shy;tered up to the gate. His brown eyes narrowed. He tipped his head and pricked up his ears.
"We are here to see Hederick," Phytos called firmly to the guard. "I am Phytos, chieftain of the Fyr-Kenti cen shy;taurs, and these are my ministers. Thou wilt admit us and announce our presence to the High Theocrat directly."
The guard didn't move. "Hederick's holding his witches' court. He's busy. And I ne
ver heard of no Fyr-Kenti nothin', anyway."
" "Us our home glade, north of here," Feelding put in.
"No one but humans passes through these gates," the guard snapped. "Temple Erolydon is a holy place."
"We have news that Hederick must hear," Salomar added.
"What news could a trio of ponies have for the High Theocrat of Solace? Although, truly, I could find good use for the female, there." The guard motioned lewdly at Feelding, who, like most centaurs, saw no more point in clothing her human torso than in donning garments for her horselike body. The centaurs wore only the wide bands that held their quivers of arrows and leather bags that contained goods from the Solace markets.
The guard gestured at Feelding again and roared with coarse laughter. Two compatriots, who'd remained by the gate, joined in.
Phytos, Salomar, and Feelding took a quiet step toward the gate at the same instant, slipped arrows in their bows, and raised their weapons. Mirth dropped from the guards like a cloak. One guard drew his sword. The two nearer the gate hoisted spears.
A crowd of pilgrims waiting near the gate drew back, blocking Kifflewit Burrthistle's view. The kender crept from his hiding place behind the tree, slunk unnoticed through the pilgrims, and poked his head around the voluminous skirts of a traveler.
High Priest Dahos had arrived at the gate, Kifflewit saw. Hederick's lieutenant gestured the centaurs away. "Heathen creatures!" he cried. "You don't belong here, centaurs. Get back to your forest meadows with your pagan offspring and your primitive, bestial rites, lest you find yourself on trial for heresy!"
"We have important information for the High Theo-crat," Phytos said obdurately. "News he will require if he hopes to avoid a war."
The guards laughed, but Dahos gave the centaurs his attention. The high priest appeared unfazed by gazing directly into a centaur arrow. "Perhaps His Worship would be interested," the brown-robed priest said calculatingly. "Give me your news, and I will give it to him when he is through passing sentence this afternoon."
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