about kender not traveling in company, this one had been
with a red-haired hunter who had an elven look about him,
three young men, and a dwarf. He remembered them
because one of the young men, thin and pale-eyed, no
warrior like his two companions, had threatened to turn the
kender into a mouse and fill the tavern with cats if he so
much as looked at his pouches again. A mage, by the sound
of that threat. Keli had thought at the time that the others
probably traveled with the mage just to keep the kender in
line.
Could it be that these companions would be looking for
the kender? I’M MAKING SURE THAT MY FRIENDS
FIND ME. . . . How? Keli drew a breath, and hope with it.
But the hope was small and too slim to flare. Hide and
Go Seek, the boy thought, is played with friends in the
streets and alleyways of the town you live in. Not with
goblins and thieves in the forest.
The bride was a summer princess, her hair golden
wheat, her eyes blue-touched with dawn’s mist. Roses
blossomed in her cheeks. Her laughter rose and dipped the
way a bird’s song will.
So she seemed to Tanis. She must have seemed that
way to Flint, too, for he gifted Kavan, the miller’s son, with
her hand as though presenting the boy with jewels. How
Karan felt was clear for all to see; all the jewels of Krynn
would be but poor stones and rubble when compared with
this girl.
“Lucky fellow, this Kavan,” Caramon murmured when
the ceremony was ended.
Tanis gave him a sidelong look and a grin. “Caught, is
what he is, but the jailer is pretty enough, isn’t she?”
“Aye, and it won’t be bread and water for him. Though
it will be some time before he has any interest in kitchen
matters – ” He did not finish the thought but jerked around
when a hard finger caught him between the ribs.
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, youngster,” Flint
growled.
“I didn’t mean – ”
“I know what you meant. Now why don’t you go off
and do what you do best: find yourself something to eat.”
It was a suggestion Caramon never found amiss. When
he was gone, Tanis grinned again. “Runne is a beauty, isn’t
she?”
“Aye, she’s that. Her grandfather would have been
proud this day.”
Memories darkened the old dwarf’s eyes again, clouds
in a clear sky. As though to deny the sudden thread of
sadness running through his day, Flint looked around,
searched the crowd of family and friends now surging
around the new bride and her husband. “That addle-pated
kender never turned up.”
“I haven’t seen him, but Tas isn’t one to miss a
celebration. He’ll be here before long and likely you’ll be
wishing he wasn’t.”
Yet through the long summer afternoon and into the hot
dark of night the guests at the wedding moved easily,
refilling wine goblets or ale pots and plates too soon
emptied of the good food. No one cried thief, no one
wondered where his purse had got to, no lady missed even
the smallest trinket or scarf.
There was no kender in attendance, and by the time red
Lunitari reached his zenith and white Solinari left the
horizon behind, Sturm came to Tanis wondering.
The forest had thinned near sunset, the oaks and pines
were spare now, replaced by stony ground and boulders.
Night’s dark cloak brought no relief from the day’s heat, and
Tigo was not bearing the simmering night well at all. His
eyes were black pits, his lean, hard jaw jerked from time to
time under a tic of which he seemed unaware. His fingered
hand stroked the grapnel’s hook as though he’d decided to
do murder with it.
Beyond a gulp of water, Keli and Tas were granted
nothing. The rope tethers were gone, the knee and ankle
thongs were back. Above the whine and drone of gnats, the
bright song of crickets, Keli heard the kender’s low cursing.
Twisting so that he faced the fellow, Keli grudgingly
whispered, “Are you all right?”
“It’s not,” the kender grumbled, “so much that I’m