Seated on a stone watering trough, Tanis leaned back against the cold wall of the small pump house in the central courtyard and swung one leg indolently over the other. Dipping a cupped hand into the trough, he splashed his sweat-and grime-covered face with cool water and dried it on his sleeve. He closed his eyes and held his face up to the warmth of the late-afternoon sun.
Next to him on the ground, back against the wall, the old dwarf snored softly into his tipped hat. As he frequently reminded his half-elf friend, he was not as young as he used to be; even though his mind could not recall the night spent under the satyrs' charm spell, doing gods knew what, his body surely remembered. Flint's barrel-shaped body shuddered at the aches and pains.
Things had been a bit more strained between the small group in the eight or so hours since they had awakened among the wreckage of the satyr camp. If possible, the encounter had made the sea elf more headstrong and willful, more driven to retrieve her bracelet and return to the sea, than before.
Most humbling of all, the satyrs had taken nearly everything of value from everyone but Tas. The kender had been almost insulted that they'd overlooked his alabaster ink stopper and the tiny, engraved portrait of his parents, and they'd not taken even a single one of his maps. The sorry quartet barely had enough coinage left between them to purchase one serving of bubble and squeak, and none of them liked that bland cabbage-and-potato dish anyway.
"Well?"
Startled, Tanis popped one eye open. "Well, what?"
"Shouldn't someone go ask if this Delbridge person is in there?"
Tanis laughed. "It's not an alehouse, Selana," he said. "It's the home of the most influential person in this village, to which we are strangers. Perhaps our thief is his guest. You can't just march up and say 'hand over the chubby cheat in the green jacket.' "
"Why not?" asked Tas.
Only half-asleep and listening, Flint laughed himself awake.
"I'm not some little fool from the sea, Tanis Half-Elven," said Selana, glaring the dwarf into uncomfortable silence. "I'll simply tell them the truth, that I've come a long way to find a thief who stole a valuable bracelet of mine, and that I believe he is somewhere in the keep. Curston is a Knight of Solamnia, surely an honorable man. He'll listen with an open mind."
Tanis nodded, surprised to find that he agreed.
Tas jumped to his feet. "I'll come with you, Selana," he offered, having grown bored with winning "Exes and Ohs." Flint yanked him back to the ground.
"I don't like sending her to the door alone," he said, shaking his shaggy salt-and-pepper head, "but knowing the knighthood's distrust of anything not human, she'll have trouble enough without a kender, dwarf, or half-elf at her side. Cinch up your scarf, at least," he advised Selana, giving her hand a fatherly pat.
The sea elf frowned at the necessity, but nonetheless artfully rewrapped her dirty silk scarf about her head. She rehearsed a few lines as she passed through the arched portico and stepped up to the carved door. Taking the brass knocker ring firmly in hand, she slammed it again and again into the metal plate on the stout door.
Suddenly a wrinkled old face popped around the edge of the door, sporting an odd combination of ratty gray and corn-yellow hair. His eyes, slightly milked over with
early cataracts, were red-rimmed. Momentarily startled by the sea elf's unexpected countenance, he wedged himself between the massive door and the jam. Selana could see a black band around the thin biceps of his right arm.
"Excuse me, sir," she began as sweetly as she could manage. "My name is Selana, and I'm looking for a human named Delbridge Fid—"
"Never heard of him. Go away." The stoop-shouldered old servant moved to unwedge himself.
"Wait!" Selana cried. "It's very important that I find him, and I have good reason to believe he's in the keep. Perhaps I could speak with Lord Curston?" She batted her eyelids sweetly.
"Don't try that stuff on me, young lady," the old man said gruffly. "His Lordship isn't seeing anyone. Now, go away."
Selana placed her hand through the door and held onto the jam. "Perhaps he would make one small exception."
The man shook his head sadly, the bite seemingly knocked from him. "Not for Takhisis herself, I'm afraid. Young Rostrevor is missing, kidnapped two nights ago from his bedchamber, right under his father's nose. The keep is in a state, and I have strict orders not to disturb Lord Curston."
The servant looked newly agitated. "I'm a sad old man who's revealed more than he should. Leave us to our grief."
Selana shook her head mutely. "I'm—sorry, I didn't know," she managed to mumble at last, stumbling backward down the steps. Meeting her companions' questioning glances, the sea elf quickly relayed the news.
"A bit of bad luck and timing on our part," said Tanis.
"Is it?" Flint cut in quickly, scratching his beard in thought. "An opportunistic swindler arrives in town, the knight's son is kidnapped, and now there's no trace of either of them, but the bracelet is somewhere inside the keep. Coincidence?"
"Are you saying that you think the bumbling bard Gaesil described to us kidnapped the knight's son for some strange reason, then, for some equally unfathomable cause, left the bracelet behind?" Tanis asked, incredulous.
The dwarf ignored his friend's skepticism, tapping his whiskered chin. "I'm saying I have a hunch that unusual events traveling in pairs may be related, that's all."
Tanis frowned in dismay; the dwarf's hunches were often on the mark. If the bracelet was somehow tied up in the young man's disappearance, this whole escapade was going to be a lot more complicated than just finding Delbridge and shaking him down for the stolen jewelry.
"Well," said Selana, "we aren't going to find the bracelet out here in the courtyard."
"There's another sure thing," pointed out Tas, looking at the closed wooden door. "We aren't going to be invited in to look for it."
"If you're thinking about sneaking in," said Flint, "we'll have to wait for cover of darkness."
"That's what everyone thinks," began Tasslehoff, shaking his finger, "but I've had different experiences. I know you won't believe this, but several times during my travels I've looked up and found myself someplace other than where I'd thought I was. I'm thinking mostly about this magical ring that teleported me to the lair of some giants, but those were special circumstances.
"Anyway," he continued, dismissing the ring story with a wave of his fine-boned hand, "the funny thing is, if you look like you belong somewhere, people tend to think you do. Belong there, that is."
"You're suggesting we just boldly stroll in the front door?" squealed Flint in disbelief.
Tas shrugged, twirling his topknot nonchalantly. "If you prefer, we could find a side entrance. I still have my tools, so these locks would be a snap—" he snapped his fingers "—to open."
"Pick, you mean," sighed Tanis, running a hand wearily through his thick hair. "I hate to think we've sunk to breaking in—it puts us at Delbridge's level of thievery."
"What's this talk about thievery?" scoffed Tas. "Just because we let ourselves in?"
"It does not lower us!" agreed Selana, her nose wrinkling. "He stole something that did not belong to him. We're simply retrieving what is rightfully ours."
Tanis held up his hands in mock defense, then waved everyone ahead of him. "Lead the way, Tas."
Tasslehoff stepped brightly out of the pump house's shade, then paused with his hands on his hips, studying the keep. Flint fidgeted next to him, nervously clutching the head of his axe and glancing over his shoulder. Selana and Tanis stood nearby. Within seconds, Tas spotted what he wanted and was hiking briskly toward the keep with his friends bustling behind.
At the spot Tas had chosen, a smaller building abutted the keep. Where the two structures met, a deeply recessed doorway led into the tower. The kender strode straight into it and nearly disappeared in its shadows. The door was set back six or seven feet from the keep's outer wall, so all four travelers could easily crowd into its space.
"After you," said Tas, pushing the door open and stepping aside. The three others filed past into a narrow corridor temporarily lit by sunlight, then Tas gently closed the door.
After several moments of waiting for his eyes to adjust, Tas spoke up. "I can't see a blasted thing in here."
"We dare not strike a light," whispered Tanis, and Selana and Flint mumbled soft agreement.
"Sure, you dwarves and elves can see in the dark. What about me? It's pitch black in here."
"You'll just have to do the best you can," said Tanis. "Just hang on to the person ahead of you. I'll lead, then Selana, Tas, and Flint in the rear. What do you make of this place, Flint?"
The dwarf was peering ahead into the darkness, tuning his innate ability to see outlines in the dark. "I don't have much of an answer, Tanis. It looks like a blind passage: no doors or connecting hallways in sight, though what's farther ahead than about twenty feet I can't say. The whole thing seems to curve to the left, and it's mighty narrow."
Tanis agreed. "The only way to go is forward until we cross an intersection."
They moved slowly along the corridor, footsteps echoing softly in the damp air. Tas hobbled along with one hand on the rough stone wall, the other clutching a corner of Selana's scarf.
"Where should we look first?" whispered Tas to no one in particular. "Say, come to think of it, why don't you just cast that spell again, Selana? You know, the one that tells you where the bracelet is."
"It's not like a divining rod, Tasslehoff," the sea elf explained. "It gives me only vague directions, though they can be narrowed down by asking the right questions. But I can cast that spell only once a day, and I've already done my quota for today."
Bringing up the rear, Flint cleared his throat softly. "The old fellow at the gate said the knight's son had been kidnapped from his bedchambers. I say we look there. If Delbridge is responsible for the abduction, he may have dropped the bracelet in his haste to leave."
"The only problem with that suggestion," whispered Tanis, "is that this hallway seems to be spiraling sharply down, not up, and if we turn around we'll only end up back at the dead-end door we came in."
Flint, trying desperately to clomp quietly over the stone-block floor in his heavy leather, hobnailed boots, gave Tasslehoff's shoulder a shove. "Nice job, doorknob. You probably picked the only entrance in this castle that didn't lead up into the keep. Instead, we're tromping to gods know where down this endless corkscrew hall. Haven't even seen one doorway yet."
"We're inside, aren't we?" Tas shot back. "Besides, I didn't see you—"
Tanis clapped his hands over his pointed ears. "Enough!" he hissed, whirling on them. Selana skittered to the side. "Your bickering could make a half-elf's head split in two, not to mention alerting anyone within a hundred yards of our presence."
Dwarf and kender fell into a sheepish silence.
"Is that a door, ahead on the left?" asked Selana, pointing around the half-elf's shoulder.
Tanis squinted and saw a vague outline about twenty feet down the spiraling hallway. Taking a half-dozen quick steps, he reached out a hand to touch the wooden surface. He groped around the left side for a knob.
"Wait!" whispered Tasslehoff, elbowing his way past Selana to Tanis's side. "You never just walk up and rattle a strange door, especially not in a place like this. It could be trapped or rigged with an alarm or all kinds of things." The kender rifled through a pouch and quickly found what he needed, then set about the delicate task of searching for springs, wires, latches, balance points, and a host of other hazards his companions could barely guess at.
Tanis was glad for the darkness, because he was blushing with embarrassment. He had been so anxious to get somewhere, anywhere, that he'd forgotten his common sense. Only a rank amateur charged through a door under such foreboding circumstances.
"I think it's clean," pronounced Tas at last, "but it was locked. You never can be too careful. Why, once my mother's eldest brother's eldest boy, Old Uncle Latchlifter—actually, that would make him my cousin, wouldn't it? Why do you suppose we called him uncle, then? Anyway, Old Uncle Latchlifter—not Uncle Trapspringer, who's far too clever about such things—Uncle Latchlifter got careless picking a lock. Kablooey! Of course, you only have to do that sort of thing once, don't you?"
"Open the door, Tas," Tanis ordered in a monotone.
"Certainly." Tas pushed it open and stepped through. "Before he died, Old Uncle Latchlifter was a great one for giving advice. 'Never hit your mother with a shovel,' he used to tell me. 'It leaves a big impression on her mind.' " Moved by the memory, Tasslehoff shook his topknot. "Poor Uncle Latchlifter. He was as crazy as a bugbear, you know."
Beyond the doorway was a small room, not more than ten feet by fifteen, with a ceiling so low as to make even the dwarf feel he should duck his head. Another, smaller door was set into the far wall. The room was very nearly empty, with only several large urns and some scrap lumber piled neatly in one corner and a crudely built, closed box the size of a very large trunk on the floor in the corner near the other door.
Selana wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It smells like something died in here."
"Probably rats," said Tanis, his breath lingering before him in moist, white wisps.
Selena unconsciously moved a bit closer to the half-elf. "Bes schedal," she whispered, and a dim glow, its source undetectable, immediately filled the room with amber fog. The sea elf shivered under her thin cloak as she scanned the floor for movement. "We must be quite far underground."
Flint shuddered as well, though not from the cold or the thought of rodents. "This place gives me the willies," he confessed. "The bracelet's obviously not down here, so let's—"
"Great Reorx!"
Tanis, Flint, and Selana all jumped at Tasslehoff's curse. Spinning about, they saw him at the wooden box, his hand on the now half-opened lid.
"This is where that awful stench is coming from." Throwing his shoulder into the task, the kender was working at prying the lid the rest of the way off.
"Wait, Tas—" Tanis began, but his warning came too late.
Grunting with exertion, Tasslehoff flung the wooden cover back and looked into the box. His eyes went wide with wonder, then watered up from the smell, until he had to blink back tears to see.
"A body!" he coughed. "Boy, is it disgusting, all blue and puffy-looking. Come and take a look."
Flint and Tanis both glanced at Selana, who was holding her stomach and looking more pale than usual.
"Tas, shut the lid. We're getting out of here now" the half elf ordered, taking Selana by the arm and steering her back to the door.
Tas was peering intently at the body inside the box. "Something about this guy seems very familiar, Tanis," he muttered. "Short, fat, pug-nosed—"
Flint, who was about to severely chastise the kender, recognized the description, too. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he stepped to within three feet of the stinking box, looked in, and nodded firmly. "I'd bet my favorite axe that he's our man."
Despite her revulsion, Selena's ears perked up. "Someone check for the bracelet!"
Tas leaned into the box eagerly.
"Oh, no you don't," warned Flint in a low voice. He took the kender by the arm and escorted him back to the door through which they had entered the room. "You're not going to touch that bracelet again, if I have anything to say about it. And I do. You stay out of trouble here and stand watch with Selana." He gulped before adding, "Tanis and I will check out the stiff."
Flint and Tanis approached the box warily. They converged on opposite sides, both looking down distastefully.
"I'd been expecting all along that it would be us giving him a rough time when we finally met up, but he's turned the tables on us, eh, Tanis?"
Tanis smirked at his friend's dark humor. "He might not see it that way. Let's get this over with." Tanis crouched down on one knee and reached into the box, then withdrew his hand and wiped it furtively on his leather legging. Irritated, he stared at the hand as if it had betrayed him and reached again, this time grasping the shirt sleeve on the dead man's left arm. He tugged, but the hand was twisted and pinned under the body. He tugged harder and pulled it free. The arm bent forward stiffly at the shoulder. Using both hands, he slid the sleeve back from the wrist, but found nothing but puffy ashen flesh.
Flint, working on the right arm, had similar luck. "What do you suppose our boy died from?" he wondered. "No wounds on the body that I can see."
Flint's comments were cut off by a gasp from Tanis. He looked across the box and his blood nearly stopped in his veins.
The dead man's hand, rings sparkling on the gray fingers, was locked around Tanis's left forearm, his lifeless eyes wide open but unseeing. The body struggled into a sitting position and its pallid head lolled hideously on an overly long neck, as if it were now just a stretched and broken spring.
"Zombie!" the half-elf cried, desperately fumbling with his right hand for the dagger on his left hip. His fingers locked around the hilt and whisked it free, then brought it slashing down on Delbridge's cold, dead forearm, but the zombie seemed hardly to react as the blade sawed through its toughened hide.
Flint was there in a flash, chopping at the arm with his axe. Tanis stumbled away from the box as the zombie crashed back into it, minus its left hand. The quivering, severed hand of the dead man maintained its grip on the half-elf, but Tanis frantically pried up the ringed fingers one at a time with the blade of his dagger until the hand fell to the ground with a dull thud.
The zombie did not hesitate or even cry out, but continued struggling to grasp the edge of the box with its oozing stump.
Flint was ready. The hearty dwarf raised his axe high and swung it down again and again with the rhythm of a practiced woodcutter, mindless of the ichor that splattered with each blow, or even of Tanis standing next to him, slashing with his dagger. He knew that a zombie never veered from its single obsession until destroyed, turned back by a priest, or called off by its master.
[Meetings 02] - Wanderlust Page 16