“And you never mentioned this to us?” Sturm glared at Tas.
“Well, the subject just never came up.” Tas said apologetically. “Now, if you had asked me directly-‘Tasslehoif, do you have a pair of magical seeing glasses?’-I would have told you the truth straight off. But you never did, Sturm Brightblade, so don’t look at me like that. Anyway, I can read this old book. Let me tell you what I-”
“How do you know they’re magic and not just some mechanical device of the dwarves?” Tanis asked, sensing that Tas was hiding something.
Tas gulped. He had been hoping Tanis wouldn’t ask him that question.
“Uh;” Tas stammered, “I-I guess I did sort of, happened to, uh, mention them to Raistlin one night when you were all busy doing something else. He told me they might be magic. To find out, he said one of those weird spells of his and they – uh – to glow. That meant they were enchanted. He asked me what they did and I demonstrated and he said they were ‘glasses of true seeing’ The dwarves magic-users of old made them to read books written in other languages and-” Tas stopped.
“And?” Tanis pursued.
“And-uh-magic spellbooks.” Tas’s voice was a whisper.
“And what else did Raistlin say?”
“That if I touched his spellbooks or even looked at them sideways, he’d turn me into a cricket and s-swallow m-me whole,” Tasslehoff stammered. He looked up at Tanis with wide eyes. “I believed him; too.”
Tanis shook his head. Trust Raistlin to come up with a threat awful enough to quench the curiosity of a kender. “Anything else?” he asked.
“No, Tanis,” Tas said innocently. Actually Raistlin had mentioned something else about the glasses, but Tas hadn’t been able to understand it very well. Something about the glasses seeing things too truly, which didn’t make any sense, so he figured it probably wasn’t worth bringing up. Besides, Tanis was mad enough already.
“Well, what have you discovered?” Tanis asked grudgingly.
“Oh, Tanis, it’s so interesting!” Tas said, thankful the ordeal was over. He carefully turned a page and, even as he did so, it split and cracked beneath his small fingers. He shook his head sadly. “That happens almost every time. But, you can see here”-the others leaned around to stare beneath the kender’s finger-“pictures of dragons. Blue dragons, red dragons, black dragons, green dragons. I didn’t know there were so many. Now, see this thing?” He turned another page. “Oops. Well, you can’t see it now, but it was a huge ball of glass. And-so the book says-if you have one of these glass balls, you can gain control over the dragons and they’ll do what you say!”
“Glass ball!” Flint sniffed, then sneezed. “Don’t believe him, Tanis. I think the only thing those glasses have done is magnify his tall stories.”
“I am so telling the truth!” Tas said indignantly. “They’re called dragon orbs, and you can ask Raistlin about them! He must know because according to this, they were made by the great wizards, long ago.”
“I believe you;” Tanis said gravely, seeing that Tasslehoff was really upset. “But I’m afraid it won’t do us much good. They were probably all destroyed in the Cataclysm and we wouldn’t know where to look anyway-”
“Yes, we do,” Tas said excitedly. “There’s a list here, of where they were kept. See-‘He stopped, cocking his head. “Shhhh.” he said, listening. The others fell silent. For a moment they heard nothing, then their ears caught what the kender’s quicker hearing had already detected.
Tanis felt his hands grow cold; the dry, bitter taste of fear filled his mouth. Now he could hear, in the distance, the sound of hundreds of hams braying – horns all of them had heard before. The bellowing, brass horns that heralded the approach of the draconian armies-and the approach of the dragons.
The horns of death.
Chapter 7
“-not destined to meet again in this world.”
The companions had just reached the marketplace when the first flight of dragons struck Tarsis.
The group had separated from the knights, not a pleasant parting. The knights had tried to convince them to escape with them into the hills. When the companions refused, Derek demanded that Tasslehoff accompany them, since the kender alone knew the location of the dragon orbs. Tanis knew Tas would only run away from the knights and was forced to refuse again.
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