“Do you think it’s safe?” Caramon asked, peering through a hedge.
“Safe or not, it’s the way we have to go,” Tanis snapped, “unless you can fly or unless you want to go back into the forest. It took us an hour to travel a few hundred yards. We ought to reach the crossroads next week at that pace.”
The big man flushed, chagrined. “I didn’t mean-”
“I’m sorry.” Tanis sighed. He too looked down the road. The great vallenwoods formed a dark corridor in the gray light. “I don’t like it any better than you do.”
“Do we separate or stay together?” Sturm interrupted what he considered idle chatter with cold practicality.
“We stay together,” Tanis replied. Then, after a moment, he added, “Still, someone ought to scout-”
“I will, Tanis,” Tas volunteered, popping up out of the brush beneath Tanis’s elbow. “No one would ever suspect a kender traveling alone.”
Tanis frowned. Tas was right-no one would suspect him. Kenders were all afflicted with wanderlust, traveling throughout Krynn in search of adventure. But Tas had the disconcerting habit of forgetting his mission and wandering off if something more interesting caught his attention.
“Very well,” Tanis said finally. “But, remember, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, keep your eyes open and your wits about you. No roaming off the road and above all”-Tanis fixed the kender’s eye with his own sternly-“keep your hands out of other people’s belongings.”
“Unless they’re bakers,” Caramon added.
Tas giggled, pushed his way through the final few feet of brush, and started off down the road, his hoopak staff digging holes in the mud, his pouches jouncing up and down as he walked. They heard his voice lift in a kender trailsong.
Your one true love’s a sailing ship
That anchors at our pier.
We lift her sails, we man her decks,
We scrub the portholes clear;
And yes, our lighthouse shines for her,
And yes, our shores are warm;
We steer her into harbor-
Any port in a storm.
The sailors stand upon the docks,
The sailors stand in line,
As thirsty as a dwarf for gold
Or centaurs for cheap wine.
For all the sailors love her,
And flock to where she’s moored,
Each man hoping that he might
Go down, all hands on board.
Tanis, grinning, allowed a few minutes to pass after hearing the last verse of Tas’s song before starting out. Finally they stepped out on the road with as much fear as a troupe of unskilled actors facing a hostile audience. It felt as if every eye on Krynn was on them.
The deep shade under the flame-colored leaves made it impossible to see anything in the woods even a few feet from the road. Sturm walked ahead of the group, alone, in bitter silence. Tanis knew that though the knight held his head proudly, he was slogging through his own darkness. Caramon and Raistlin followed. Tanis kept his eyes on the mage, concerned about his ability to keep up.
Raistlin had experienced some difficulty in getting through the brush, but he was moving along well now. He leaned on his staff with one hand, holding open a book with the other. Tanis at first wondered what the mage was studying, then realized it was his spellbook. It is the curse of the magi that they must constantly study and recommit their spells to memory every day. The words of magic flame in the mind, then flicker and die when the spell is cast. Each spell burns up some of the magician’s physical and mental energy until he is totally exhausted and must rest before he can use his magic again.
Flint stumped along on the other side of Caramon. The two began to argue softly about the ten-year-old boating accident.
“Trying to catch a fish with your bare hands-” Flint grumbled his disgust.
Tanis came last, walking next to the Plainsmen. He turned his attention to Goldmoon. Seeing her clearly in the flecked gray light beneath the trees, he noticed lines around her eyes that made her appear older than her twenty-nine years.
“Our lives have not been easy,” Goldmoon confided to him as they walked. “Riverwind and I have loved each other many years, but it is the law of my people that a warrior who wants to marry his chieftain’s daughter must perform some great feat to prove himself worthy. It was worse with us. Riverwind’s family was cast out of our tribe years ago for refusing to worship our ancestors. His grandfather believed in ancient gods who had existed before the Cataclysm, though he could find little evidence of them left on Krynn.