Ah, to be a kender and never fret about anything.
As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, they broke camp and reached the Dalti River just as the sun was clearing the tops of the trees. The simple dirt track they followed, used by cattle herders and itinerant peddlers, ended at the broad, slow-flowing Dalti. There was no bridge, only an anchored ferry. The ferryman’s hut stood on a knoll overlooking the waterway. It was surrounded by empty cattle pens and a ramshackle stable. Smoke seeped from the hut’s chimney. Tol rode up, dismounted, and knocked on the door.
The ferryman was a centaur. Gray-bearded, with a seamed, leathery face, he emerged from the snug house pulling a blanket over his shoulders. His horse’s body was a brown roan color.
“Early,” he grumbled, wiping sleep from his dark eyes.
“That’s me,” replied the kender.
The centaur looked confused. “Early to be travelin’,” he clarified.
Early nodded vigorously, “I am, and this is my partner, Lor-”
“Name’s Loric,” Tol said loudly, not wanting to announce his identity to all and sundry. “My kender friend’s Early.”
“You both are,” the centaur answered, stamping a hoof.
Tol let it drop. They followed the centaur into the ferry station.
The station had been built for a human operator, but the centaur, whose name was Edzar, had long occupied it. The house now resembled a horse barn, devoid of any furniture, its packed dirt floor covered with hay. A fire burned on the hearth, and two iron kettles bubbled there. Edzar offered them oat porridge and sweet cider. Tol gladly accepted the cider. Early had both.
The centaur clamped a gnarled hand around the handle and lifted the cider pot off the fire to fill Tol’s clay cup. Tol was amazed. The twisted iron bale was hot enough to raise blisters on a human hand.
“Where you headed?” asked Edzar.
Fortunately, Early was spooning gray porridge in his mouth and couldn’t answer. “Caergoth,” Tol said.
“Soldier, eh?”
An obvious assumption, what with his war-horse and sword, so he nodded. “Reporting back to my horde in Caergoth.” Edzar’s meager curiosity was satisfied.
He told them they couldn’t depart right away hut must wait to see whether others might come wanting to cross the river. As it was winter and traffic was light, no one else had arrived by midmorning, so the centaur agreed to ferry them alone.
The ferry was ten paces square, worn from many years of use, but a sturdy craft. Still, Tetchy snorted and shook his black head, nervous about leaving solid ground. Early’s mount moved closer to him, and Tetchy quieted instantly. Tol was amused to see the muscular war-horse walk docilely aboard beside the much smaller pony. Longhound obviously had a calming effect.
Edzar watched them from the cupola of the station. Thick cables linked a treadmill on which he stood to pulleys on the far shore. The cables were also attached to the ferry, so as the centaur walked, the craft was drawn across the river.
During the crossing, Early pointed ahead to a thin rim of clouds on the eastern horizon.
“Gonna snow,” he said.
“Are you a weather seer as well as an official taster?” Tol asked.
“Nope. Just know snow clouds when I see ’em. Gonna snow.”
So it did. The plain west of Caergoth was largely empty, as crops had been harvested and herds driven in for the winter, and they made good progress all day. However, the low line of clouds grew steadily until the sky was uniformly gray and furrowed like a farmer’s field. Snow began to fall in late afternoon. Darkness came early, hastened by the heavy pall of clouds.
They camped on the lee side of an outcropping of boulders. Tol rigged a canvas fly to keep the snow off. They built a fire and pooled their simple rations: salt beef from Tol and “go-far” from Early. This was a concoction of potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, and other things which had been lightly cooked, then pounded into a lumpy paste. It could be fried in a pan, or simply eaten as it was. Tol found the kender rations surprisingly tasty.
As they ate, Early talked about his forebears (whether these were Stumpwaters or Thistledowns or Foxfires, Tol wasn’t sure). They hailed from Balifor originally, he said. His great-great-grandfather had been the right-hand kender to the famed Balif.
“So what was the truth about Balif-was he kender or elf?” Tol asked, biting seared beef from a skewer.
“We do not speak of that awful tragedy.”
Tol blinked at the uncharacteristically laconic response. A subject kender would not speak of? He was intrigued and tried to wheedle the tale out of Early. Surprisingly, the kender would not be persuaded.
Early soon succumbed to slumber, leaving Tol to watch the soft flakes of snow falling in the still air. The blanket of white was already ankle-deep. At this rate it would be knee-high by morning.
Tol found himself reluctant to sleep. His dream of the night before (if dream it was) filled him with a dread of closing his eyes. Stupid and illogical, of course. If Mandes meant mischief, he could do it whether Tol was asleep or awake.
Still, he kept his eyes off the fire, the dance of flames being notoriously hypnotic. Leaning back, with Number Six resting across his lap, he propped his head on the cold boulder behind him, the canvas fly keeping the snow off his face. His eyes were gritty with fatigue, so he blinked to clear them.
A gray-wrapped figure appeared between one blink and the next. It stood a little ways off in the snow, at the very edge of the campfire’s circle of light.
Not taking his eyes from the gray figure, Tol called out to rouse Early. The kender snored on. Tol pushed himself to his feet, pulling his saber from its sheath, and presenting the point to the phantom.
“Name yourself, stranger!” he said hoarsely.
I have stopped his mouth.
Tol whirled. The words had come from behind him. Much closer to him, directly over the sleeping kender in fact, stood an identically garbed phantom.
Go back to Daltigoth.
“Go to your grave, trickster!” Tol shouted.
He leaped over the fire and slashed through the Mandes phantom with his saber. His blade passed harmlessly through the specter. Tol kept moving forward, arms spread wide, intending to let the millstone’s influence disperse the spell. Sure enough, as he passed through it, the image disappeared.
Stumbling in the snow, Tol turned back toward the fire. The second ghost-Felryn? — was still there, immobile as a statue. Early was curled up as close to the fire as he could get. He’d not stirred a muscle through all the alarums. Mandes must’ve used a soporific spell on him. Of the Mandes phantom there was no sign.
Something flickered in the smoke rising from the fire. At first Tol thought it was a trick of the flames, but the amorphous shape resolved itself into the facade of a building, translucent to the smoke rising around it. The building was a familiar one. It was Elicarno’s workshop in Daltigoth.
The image shifted, as though the magical eyes through which Tol was seeing the scene were rushing toward the front door. No guards stood watch, but the heavy portal was secured by one of Elicarno’s sturdy iron locks. It proved no barrier. The scene changed to the inner room beyond.
The great room was only dimly lit, filled with Elicarno’s many machines. Unerringly the image tracked through the gears, pulleys, and standing frames until it found the stairs leading to the living quarters. With dizzying effect, the scene swung up, rising into the pitch-black stairwell.
“Stop!” Tol cried.
He raised his sword but made no other move. Whatever Mandes was doing, he was doing it from his lair. This image was intended as a mirror of what was happening in far-off Daltigoth. He could do nothing but stand and watch.
The magical invader moved along the second story, passing several open doorways and peering into each as it ghosted by. Elicarno’s crew, apprentices and journeymen alike, were sleeping four to six to a room. Although he could plainly see mouths gaping from snores, no sound came to Tol’s
ears.
At the end of the upstairs hall was a closed door. Again the phantom pierced the locked panel effortlessly. This room was lit by the soft blue glow of a lamp atop a shelf near the door; the lamp’s chimney was a polished, hollowed out lump of lapis. A curtained bed stood by the far wall.
The scene halted for a moment, and for the first time Tol glimpsed the intruder-a heavy, hairy paw, tipped with ivory claws like a bear’s, came into his field of view. No longer an incorporeal wraith, the thing moved forward with deadly deliberation, reached out a claw, and parted the velvet curtains surrounding the bed.
Tol shouted with frustrated rage, advancing a step toward the fire. Plainly visible by the azure light were the sleeping forms of Miya and Elicarno. Heavy with child, Miya slept on her side, facing the intruder. Her husband lay close behind, one arm draped around the curve of her swelling belly.
Claws reached for Miya’s throat.
Tol clenched his eyes shut, praying to the gods this was not a real occurrence. It must be an illusion, designed to frighten him into giving up his mission. Mandes was a powerful sorcerer, but even he couldn’t send murderous phantoms to do his bidding from so far away, could he? Yet the golems had been sent to Tarsis to kill Tol-
Something brushed Tol’s shoulder, and he threw himself away from the odd, feathery contact. To his surprise, he saw the second gray-robed phantom had come forward out of the snow and now was standing beside him. Even at close range, he couldn’t make out the phantom’s face, but he felt a presence behind the cowl, a presence he somehow knew was both benign and terribly angry.
“Felryn, help them!” he cried, gesturing to the smoky vision.
As he continued to watch, Elicarno awakened just before the monstrous claws reached Miya’s neck. He shouted soundlessly as he grappled with the hairy paws. Miya awoke, thrashing, her throat taut with unheard cries. She rolled aside and fell out of bed. Elicarno, clad only in a breechcloth, braced a foot against his attacker’s chest. Ivory claws raked down his arms. Blood flowed.
Miya snatched up a stool from beside the bed and pounded the invader with it. The image jounced and shook with every blow she landed.
Tol cheered, but what she really needed was a blade-a table knife, a pointed tool, anything! He called upon every god he could name to send her assistance.
The monster dragged Elicarno off the bed and held him up. The engineer’s feet dangled above the floor. After raking his face and chest with its claws, the intruder hurled him against the wall. Elicarno slid down and did not move. Miya was next.
The view shifted suddenly from Miya’s horrified face to the doorway. Wild-eyed apprentices were spilling into the room, armed with whatever came to hand-staves, hammers, a carpenter’s square. When they beheld the monster attacking their master and his mate, their faces went pale as candle wax.
“Don’t stare-fight!” Tol bellowed. He edged forward.
The terrified workmen mustered their courage and attacked. Forming a protective line between the monster and Miya, they held off the nightmare beast as best they could. Lightning-fast claws tore into them time and again, and the brave engineers went down bleeding, battered, eyeless. Only one still stood when more help arrived. These were older men, Elicarno’s journeymen, armed with halberds. They jabbed and hacked at the beast, its blood spattering their spearpoints.
Now the image began to shimmer, like a view distorted by heat. Miya snatched a halberd from one man and swung the thick blade at the monster’s head.
The monster drew away. The bloody paws it held up were no longer solid; Tol could see the carpet through them. It retreated from the valiant Dom-shu woman.
Leaving the remaining men to fend off the injured beast, Miya knelt awkwardly by her husband. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She lifted her face and let out a long shriek of grief.
A log in the fire broke, and the image dissolved in a tide of sparks.
Tol turned. “Felryn! Is Elicarno alive-?”
He woke up. He wasn’t standing by the fire, sword in hand, but sitting with his back to the chill boulder. His weapon, still sheathed, lay across his lap. The fire was only a pile of dimly glowing embers. Tol’s hands and legs were numb with cold.
“Early! Early, get up!”
A brief mumble was the kender’s only reply.
Tol forced himself to his feet, willing his icy limbs to move.
“The fire’s going out!” he said. “If it dies, we die!”
He stirred the coals, adding more deadfall wood. The embers blazed into life.
“What’s the matter?” Early asked, sitting up and blinking at Tol who was wildly circling the snowy clearing. “We bein’ attacked?”
Tol related the experience-dream? — he’d just had. He mentioned the one of the night before as well.
“There’s no sign anyone else was here,” he finished. “I don’t even know if what I’m seeing is real!”
The kender drew his fur collar up close to his eyes. “Oh, it’s real enough. If the Mist-Maker was throwing illusions at you, they’d be a lot worse. You say your woman friend lived, but her husband, this builder-fella, seemed bad hurt, maybe dead? Probably true, I say. If it was only an illusion, everything would’ve gone Mandes’s way, wouldn’t it?”
Early’s logic made horrible sense. On the other hand, Mandes was wily and might not overplay his hand. He knew Tol well enough to tailor his phantasms.
Tol drove a fist into the palm of his hand; This uncertainty was maddening! How could he know for sure?
Early was regarding him with surprising sobriety. “You’re going to have to kill him, you know,” the kender said. “Taking him back to your emperor ain’t gonna be enough.”
Snow hissed down around them, and the fire crackled with renewed life. Early was right. They couldn’t possibly take the rogue wizard all the way back to Daltigoth safely. No one Tol cared for would be safe until Mandes had drawn his last breath.
“I’ll stand by you,” Early added solemnly. “All the way.”
Now Tol was truly taken aback. While kender could be foolishly brave in the face of terrible peril, they weren’t noted for selflessness, or for sticking to a plainly dangerous course.
In Early’s green eyes Tol saw something he hadn’t before: determination. Moreover, the kender’s face seemed different somehow, its lines subtly altered.
“I’d like to finish this with you.”
“I’d welcome your company,” Tol said even as the odd phrasing, the tone of the words, stirred something within him.
Before Tol could say more, Early’s chin dropped to his chest and he muttered, “The passes’ll be treacherous. What we need are snowshoes…”
The words trailed off into raspy breathing. The kender had fallen asleep.
Tol slept no more that night. The cold was merciless, held at bay only by the little fire he tended. Conditions promised to be even harsher in the higher elevations ahead.
They skirted Caergoth the next day, keeping well clear of the flow of travelers drawn to the city. They saw smoke rising from myriad chimneys and knew snug hostels and a hot meal waited within the city’s walls, but also within were potential informers and assassins. The wizard’s gold could buy a great deal of trouble in Caergoth, so they were forced to pass it by, keeping to the gray shadows in the snowy woods.
The cold and lack of sleep wore on Tol, but he pushed onward even harder. Echo Pass, the gateway to Mount Axas, was eighty-odd leagues from Daltigoth, an eight-day journey under the best conditions. The deep snow would make the going even slower, but Tol was determined to make the pass in five days. Mandes’s dreams tormented him only by night, when he slept. If night and slumber were required for the attacks on his friends, Tol wanted to reduce the number of opportunities Mandes had to strike at them.
They turned north, following the west bank of the Caer River. Once they were through the Forest of Aposh, north of Caergoth, the snow eased. By late afternoon they had reached the fork of the Caer, where Tol had found the mi
llstone in the Irda ruins half a lifetime ago.
The sky north and east was a band of bright blue, shining under the wooly mantle of clouds behind them. Across the fork was the Eastern Hundred, Tol’s old homeland. The high plain was dry, only lightly dusted with snow, but a bitter wind scoured down from the north, bringing tears to their eyes and cracking their parched lips. Early taught Tol an old kender trick: he smeared butter on their faces. The grease would protect them from the desiccating wind.
They camped on the bluff overlooking the confluence of the east and west branches of the Caer. Their short day ended, with Early laying the night’s campfire as Tol gazed down at the Irda ruins, almost invisible beneath the vines and brambles. He would like to visit the ruins but feared Mandes might be watching from afar. He didn’t dare betray any knowledge of the Irda. Mandes might connect that with Tol’s puzzling immunity to magic and infer the existence of the millstone.
The horses, tethered in the lee of the icy wind, huddled together for warmth. Tol fed and watered them, noting how they trembled with cold and fatigue, even his stalwart Tetchy. Tol felt as miserable as they looked.
Early, lying in his bedroll, groaned loudly. Though a seasoned wanderer, he’d never ridden so hard or so long in a single day before. He claimed to be too tired to sleep.
Tol, loath to fall asleep and leave himself open to Mandes’s manipulations, kept himself awake by regaling Early about his past, relating his adventures in the Great Green as a youth, how he had defeated the Dom-shu chief in single combat and thus earned his two “wives,” Miya and Kiya. He’d just begun to speak of XimXim and the Tarsis war when the kender interrupted him with a piping snore.
Tol sighed. He drained the last of the broth from his cup and hunkered down, facing the fire. His eyelids slowly closed.
Instead of the dreaded sound of Mandes’s voice, instead of the bitter, icy wind, Tol dreamt of warmth. He was on the Bay of Ergoth, the Blood Fleet under his command. The thumping of oars, the salt breeze, the hot sun were balm to his soul. He leaned against the mast of the quinquireme Thunderer and let the wonderful heat penetrate his bones.
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