The War of the Lance t2-3

by Margaret Weis

  Fizban breathed a deep sigh. Taking off his hat, he mopped his forehead with his sleeve. "Yes, that's it. True knight. Rescue damsels in distress."

  "We're not damsels," I said, thinking I should be truthful about all this, "but we are in considerable distress, so I should think that would count. Don't you?"

  Owen stood beside Huma's bier, eyeing us, and he still seemed confused and suspicious — probably because we weren't damsels. I mean, I could see how that would be disappointing, but it wasn't our fault.

  "And there's these dragonlances," I said, waving my hand at them, where we'd dropped them, on the floor at the back of the temple. "Only they don't — "

  "Dragonlances!" Owen breathed, and suddenly, it was like Solinari had dropped right down out of the sky and burst on top of the knight. His armor was bright, bright silver and he was so handsome and strong-looking that I could only stare at him in wonder. "You have found the dragonlances!"

  He thrust his sword in its sheath and hurried over to where I'd pointed. At the sight of the two lances, lying on the floor in the moonlight, Owen cried out loudly in words I didn't understand and fell down on his knees.

  Then he said, in words I could understand, "Praise be to Paladine, These are dragonlances, true ones, such as Huma used to fight the Dark Queen. I saw the images, carved on the outside of the Temple."

  He rose to his feet and came to stand before us. "Now I know that you speak the truth. You plan to take these lances to Lord Gunthar, don't you, Sir Wizard? And the Dark Queen has laid an enchantment on you to prevent it."

  Fizban swelled up with pride at being called Sir Wizard and I saw him look at me to make certain I noticed, which I did. I was very happy for him because generally he gets called other things that aren't so polite.

  "Why, uh, yes," he said, puffing and preening and smoothing his beard. "Yes, that's the ticket. Take the lances to Lord Gunthar. We should set out right AWAY" "But the lances don't — " I began. " — shine," said Fizban. "Lances don't shine." Well, before I could mention that the lances not only didn't shine but didn't work either, Fizban had upended one of my pouches, causing my most precious and valuable possessions in the whole world to spill out all over the floor. By the time I had everything picked up and resorted and examined and wondered where I'd come by a few things that I didn't recognize, Fizban and Owen were ready to leave.

  Owen Glendower was holding the lances in his hand — did I mention that he was very strong? I mean, it took Fizban and me both to carry them, and here this knight was holding two of them without any trouble at all.

  I asked Fizban about this but he said it was reverence and thankfulness that gave the knight unusual strength.

  "Reverence and thankfulness. But we'll see about that as we go along," muttered Fizban, and I thought he looked cunning again.

  Owen Glendower said good-bye to Huma and was very unhappy over leaving the Tomb.

  "Don't worry," I told him. "If you haven't broken the enchantment, we'll be back."

  "Oh, he's broken it, all right," said Fizban, and we all trooped out the door and into the moonlight.

  And then I realized that it WAS moonlight. (I told you I'd tell you all this when it came its proper turn in the story, and this is it.) The fog was gone and we could see the Guardians and the Bridge of Passage and behind us the Silver Dragon Mountain. And Owen was so fascinated that we almost couldn't drag him off. But Fizban reminded him that the dragonlances were the "salvation of the people" and this got the knight moving.

  He'd had a horse, but somehow or other he'd lost it. He said that when we reached civilized lands we'd find other horses to ride and that would get us to Lord Gunthar's faster.

  I considered telling him that Fizban could get us all to Lord Gunthar's much, much faster, if he wanted to cast one of his spells on us. Then I thought that with Fizban's spells, all things considered (especially my eyebrows), we might end up in the middle of the Hot Springs. And maybe Fizban thought the same thing because he didn't mention his spells either. So we set off, with Owen Glendower carrying the dragonlances and me carrying my pouches and Fizban carrying a tune, sort of.

  And, praise be to any and all of the gods, we did NOT go back to Huma's Tomb!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Let me point out right here and now that it wasn't my fault we ended up in the Wasted Lands. I had a map and I told Fizban and Sir Owen we were heading the wrong direction. (It was a perfectly good map: if Tarsis By the Sea chose to get itself landlocked, I don't see how anyone can blame me for it!)

  It was night. We were wandering around in the mountains when we came to a pass. I told Fizban that we should go left. That would lead us out of the mountains and take us to Sancrist. But Fizban scoffed and said my map was outdated (outdated!) and Owen Glendower vowed he'd shave his moustaches before he ever took advice from a kender. (Which seemed a fairly safe vow to me, considering that he didn't have all that much yet to shave.) This after he'd admitted that he'd gotten himself all turned around in Foghaven Vale and wasn't real sure where he was now!

  He said that we should wait until morning and that when the sun came up we'd know what direction to take, but Fizban said he had a feeling in his bones that the sun wouldn't come up in the morning, and, by gosh, he was right. The sun didn't come up or if it did we missed it what with the snow and all.

  So we turned right when we should have turned left and came to the Wasted Lands and the adventure, but this isn't the adventure's proper place in the story yet, so it'll have to wait its turn.

  I could tell you about the days we spent traveling through the mountains in the snow but, to be honest, that part wasn't very exciting… if you don't count Fizban accidentally melting our snow shelter down around us one night while he was trying to read his spell book by the light of a magical candle that turned out to be more magic than candle. (I got to keep the wick)

  One nice thing about that time was traveling with Owen Glendower. I was getting to like the knight a lot. He said he didn't even mind being around me much (which may not sound very gracious to you but is a lot more than I expected).

  "Probably," he said, "because I don't have many valuables to lose."

  I didn't quite understand that last part, especially since he kept losing what he said was his most treasured possession: a very beautiful little painting of his wife and son that he carried in a small leather pouch over his left breast underneath his armor.

  He discovered it missing one night when we were relaxing in our snow shelter (the one Fizban melted) and we all hunted for the painting most diligently. It was right when Owen said he was going to turn me upside down and maybe inside out if I didn't give it back to him that Fizban happened to find the painting inside my shirt pocket.

  "See there," I said, handing it back to Owen, "I kept it from getting wet."

  He wasn't the least appreciative. For a minute I thought he was going to throw me out off the side of the mountain and for a minute he thought he was going to, too. But after a while he calmed down, especially when I told him that the lady inside the painting was one of the prettiest ladies I'd ever seen, next to Tika and Laurana and a certain kender maid I know whose name is engraved forever on my heart. (If I could remember it, I'd tell you, but I guess that it isn't important right now.)

  Owen sighed and said he was sorry he shouted at me and he wasn't really going to slit my pockets or maybe my gut, whichever came first. It was only that he missed his wife and son so much and was so very worried about them because he was here in the snow with us and the dragonlances, and his wife and son were back in their house alone without him.

  Well, I understood that, even if I didn't have a wife or a son or a house anymore. We made an agreement then and there. If I found the painting I was to give it right back to him immediately.

  And it was amazing to me that he lost that painting as often as he did, considering how much it meant to him. But I didn't mention this to him, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. As I said, I was beginning to like
Owen Glendower.

  "Life hasn't been easy for my lady wife," he told us one other night while we were thawing out after having spent the day trekking about lost in the snow. "From what you've told me about your friend Brightblade, you know how the knights have been persecuted and reviled. My family was driven from our ancestral home years ago, but it was a point of honor among us that someday we would return to claim it. Our holdings have passed from one bad owner to the next. The people in the village have suffered under their tyrannies and though they were the ones who drove us out, they have more than paid for that now.

  "I worked as a mercenary, to keep body and soul alive, and to earn the money to buy back lawfully what had been stolen from us. For I would be honorable, though the thieves that took it were not.

  "At last, I was able to save the necessary sum. I am ashamed to say that I was forced to keep my identity as a knight secret, lest the owners refuse to sell to me."

  He touched his moustaches as he said this. They were coming out fairly well, now, and were dark red as his hair.

  "As it was, the thieves made a good bargain, for the manor was crumbling around their ears. We have repaired it ourselves, for I could not afford to hire the work done. The villagers helped. They were glad to see a knight return, especially in these dangerous times.

  "My wife and son toiled beside me, both doing far more than their share. My wife's hands are rough and cracked from breaking stone and mixing mortar, but to me their touch is as soft as if she wrapped them in kid gloves every night of her life. Now she stands guard while I am gone, she and my boy. I did not like to leave them, with evil abroad in the land, but my duty lay with the knights, as she herself reminded me. I pray Paladine watches over them and keeps them safe."

  "He does," said Fizban, only he said it very, very softly, so softly that I almost didn't hear him. And I might not have if I hadn't felt a snuffle coming on and so was searching in his pouch for a handkerchief.

  Owen could tell the most interesting stories about when he was a mercenary and he said I was as good a listener as his son, though I asked too many questions.

  We went on like this and were really having a good time and so I guess I have to admit that I didn't really mind that we took the wrong way. We'd been wandering around lost for about four days when it quit snowing and the sun came back.

  Owen looked at the sun and frowned and said it was on the wrong side of the mountains.

  I tried to be helpful and cheer him up. "If Tarsis By the Sea could move itself away from the sea, maybe these mountains hopped around, too."

  But Owen didn't think much of my suggestion. He only looked very worried and grim. We were in the Wasted Lands, he said, and the bay we could see below us (Did I mention it? There was a bay below us.) was called Morgash Bay, which meant Bay of Darkness and that, all in all, we were in a Bad Place and should leave immediately, before it Got Worse.

  "This is all your fault!" Fizban yelled at me and stamped his foot on the snow. "You and that stupid map."

  "No, it isn't my fault!" I retorted. (Another good word — retorted.) "And it isn't a stupid map."

  "Yes, it is!" Fizban shouted and he snatched his hat off his head and threw it on the snow and began to stomp up and down on top of it. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

  Right then, things Got Worse.

  Fizban fell into a hole.

  Now, a normal person would fall into a normal hole, maybe twist an ankle or tumble down on his nose. But no, not Fizban. Fizban fell into a Hole. Not only that but he took us into the Hole along with him, which I considered thoughtful of him, but which Owen didn't like at all.

  One minute Fizban was hopping up and down in the snow calling me a doorknob of a kender (That wasn't original, by the way. Flint yells that at me all the time.) and the next the snow gave way beneath his feet. He reached out to save himself and grabbed hold of me and I felt the snow start to give way beneath my feet and I reached out to save myself and grabbed hold of Owen and the snow started to give way beneath his feet and before we knew it we were all falling and falling and falling.

  It was the most remarkable fall, and quite exciting, what with the snow flying around us and cascading down on top of us. There was one extremely interesting moment when I thought we were going to all be skewered on the dragonlances that Owen had been carrying and hadn't had time to let go of before I grabbed him. But we weren't.

  We hit bottom and the lances hit bottom and the snow that came down with us hit bottom. We lay there a little bit, catching our breath. (I left mine up top somewhere.) Then Owen picked himself up out of a snowbank and glared at Fizban.

  "Are you all right?" he demanded gruffly.

  "Nothing's broken, if that's what you mean," Fizban said in a sort of quavery-type voice. "But I seem to have lost my hat."

  Owen said something about consigning Fizban's hat to perdition and then he pulled me out of a snowbank and stood me up on my feet and picked me up when I fell back down (my breath not having made it this far yet) and he asked me if I was all right.

  I said yes and wasn't that thrilling and did Fizban think there was the possibility we could do that again. Owen said the really thrilling part was just about to begin because how in the name of the Abyss were we going to get out of here?

  Well, about that time I took a good look at where we were and we were in what appeared to be a cave all made out of snow and ice and stuff. And the hole that we'd fallen through was a long, long, long way up above us.

  "And so are our packs and the rope and the food," said Owen, staring up at the hole we'd made and frowning.

  "But we don't need to worry," I said cheerfully. "Fizban's a very great and powerful wizard and he'll just fly us all back up there in a jiffy. Won't you, Fizban?"

  "Not without my hat," he said stiffly. "I can't work magic without my hat."

  Owen muttered something that I won't repeat here as it isn't very complimentary to Fizban and I'm sure Owen is ashamed now he said something like that. And he frowned and glowered, but it soon became obvious that we couldn't get out of that hole without magic of some sort.

  I tried climbing up the sides of the cave walls, but I kept sliding back down and was having a lot of fun, though not getting much accomplished, when Owen made me stop after a whole great load of snow broke loose and fell on top of us. He said the whole mountain might collapse.

  There was nothing left to do but look for Fizban's hat.

  Owen had dug the dragonlances out of the snow and he said the hat might be near where they were. We looked, but it wasn't. And we dug all around where Fizban had fallen and the hat wasn't there either.

  Fizban was getting very unhappy and starting to blubber.

  "I've had that hat since it was a pup," he whimpered, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the end of his beard. "Best hat in the whole world. Prefer a fedora, but they're not in for wizards. Still — "

  I was about to ask who was Fedora and what did she have to do with his hat when Owen said "Shush!" in the kind of voice that makes your blood go all tingly and your stomach do funny things.

  We shushed and stared at him.

  "I heard something!" he said, only he said it without any voice, just his mouth moved.

  I listened and then I heard something, too.

  "Did you hear something?" asked a voice, only it wasn't any of our voices doing the asking. It came from behind a wall of snow that made up one end of the cave.

  I'd heard that kind of voice before — slithery and hissing and ugly. I knew right off what it was, and I could tell from the expression on Owen's face — angry and loathing — that he knew too.

  "Draconian!" Owen whispered.

  "It was only a snowfall," answered another voice, and it boomed, deep and cold, so cold that it sent tiny bits of ice prickling through my skin and into my blood and I shivered from toe to topknot. "Avalanches are common in these mountains."

  "I thought I heard voices," insisted the draconian. "On the other side of that wall. Maybe it's the
rest of my outfit."

  "Nonsense. I commanded them to wait up in the mountains until I come. They don't dare disobey. They better not disobey, or I'll freeze them where they stand. You're nervous, that's all. And I don't like dracos who are nervous. You make me nervous. And when I get nervous I kill things."

  There came a great slithering and scraping sound and the whole mountain shook. Snow came down on top of us again, but none of us moved or spoke. We just stared at each other. Each of us could match up that sound with a picture in our minds and while my picture was certainly very interesting, it wasn't conducive to long life. (Tanis told me once I should try to look at things from the perspective of whether they were or were not conducive to long life. If they weren't, I shouldn't hang around, no matter how interesting I thought it might be. And this wasn't.)

  "A dragon 1" whispered Owen Glendower, and he looked kind of awed.

  "Not conducive to long life," I advised him, in case he didn't know.

  I guess he did, because he glared at me like he would like to put his hand over my mouth but couldn't get close enough, so I put my own hand over my own mouth to save him the trouble.

  "Probably a white dragon," murmured Fizban, whose eyes were about ready to roll out of his head. "Oh, my hat! My hat!" He wrung his hands.

  Perhaps I should stop here and explain where we were in relation to the dragon. I'm not certain, but I think we were probably in a small cave that was right next to an extremely large cave where the dragon lived. A wall of snow separated us and I began to think that it wasn't a very thick wall of snow. I mean, when one is trapped in a cave with a white dragon, one would like a wall of snow to be about a zillion miles thick, and I had the unfortunate feeling that this one wasn't.

  So there we were, in a snow cave, slowly freezing to death (did I mention that?) and we couldn't move, not a muscle, for fear the dragon would hear us. Fizban couldn't work his magic because he didn't have his hat. Owen didn't look like he knew what to do, and I guess I couldn't blame him because he'd probably never come across a dragon before now. So we didn't do anything except stand there and breathe and we didn't even do much of that. Just what we had to.