stunned disbelief.
Then after a time, when the sun was nearly gone and
they were still waiting – for something – he heard the old
dwarf draw a sharp, hard breath.
“He’s lost his mind.” The words hardly matched the
breathless awe, the chilled amazement, of Flint’s tone. “By
Reorx’s forge, if that kender ever had a mind to lose, he’s
lost it now. Tanis! Look!”
Tanis raised his head from his drawn-up knees, looked
to where Flint pointed. Impossible, the half-elf thought
dully, he’s dead, drowned.
“Impossible” was not a word one could apply to a kender’s
resourcefulness with any hope of accuracy. Tas – topknot
flying in the wind from the falls, arms spread for balance –
negotiated a natural bridge no wider than the span of two
hands across the cascade’s spout high above the lake. Even
as Tanis watched, the kender turned his head as though
speaking to the one who followed him on hands and knees.
Tanis scrambled to his feet and ran out to the edge of
the shore. Sturm and Caramon joined him, squinting up into
the last light of the day.
“Aye,” Sturm muttered. “And there’s that hook-handed
villain who escaped me in the lake! How did they GET
there?” He looked around wildly as though seeking a way to
get to the arch above the falls. There was only the lake, and
he would have made that swim again.
– Tanis held him back. “You’d never get there in time,
Sturm.”
“Where does he go after he gets across? There’s
nothing but cliff and rock!”
Tanis shook his head. “Nowhere,” he whispered. He
turned away from the lake and saw Raistlin standing above
him, looking into the rainbow dance of the falls’ mist. The
young mage smiled, his light eyes eager and sharp.
“Raistlin, can you help him?”
The mage nodded slowly, thoughtfully, his eyes still on
the jeweled mist and the last shafts of sunlight. “I think I
can. He has a mountain climber’s skill, our little friend, and
it is a good thing he does: he’s going to need it.”
Stone bit sharply into Keli’s hands. Stalled and frozen
in the middle of the narrow rock span, he dared not look
down, could not look back.
Across the arch Tigo crouched, a lean and hungry
predator waiting for his prey to realize that it was trapped,
caught. There was no need for him to venture on the bridge,
no need to pursue farther. At last he would have his
murderous revenge!
Across the bridge, his back to the spray-soaked wall,
Tas shouted, “Keli! Come on!”
“I – I can’t – I can’t – ” Keli could not move, it was all he
could do to speak.
“You have to! You can’t stay there! Pretend you’re a
spider! Spiders don’t ever fall! Come on! It’ll be fun!”
Fun! Keli swallowed dryly and tried hard to be a
spider, wishing all the while he were a bird instead. Hand
over hand, he crawled across the slick stone bridge,
swearing futile boy’s oaths under his breath. Fun!
“That’s it!” Tas called. “I told you it would be fun!”
Tigo, across the span, laughed. His laughter was
ghostly, only faintly heard above the roar of the water. Keli
ignored him, concentrated on Tas and the bridge.
“Come on, Keli, a little more! You’ve almost got it!
Ever do anything as much fun as this?”
Keli groaned and shook his head. He regretted that at
once. The bridge seemed to sway and rock under him. “No,”
he panted, staring at his white knuckles. “Nothing like this!”
Hand to hand, knee to knee, Keli crept, trying not to
give in to black-winged vertigo, wishing it weren’t so hard
to breathe.
After what seemed a lifetime of crawling, Keli’s fingers
touched the kender’s, cold and slick. Tas leaned a little
forward to grasp a wrist, then an arm. “Up now, on your
feet. I’ve got you.”
Keli gained his feet, wobbled a little, and then
straightened.
“That’s right. Now just edge over here. We can both fit
on this ledge. Probably.”
Probably! “Crazy as a kender” was an expression Keli had
heard from time to time. He used to think he knew what it