“Drat!” said Fizban, waving his arms. “Get out of my
way! Can’t see a confounded thing. What’s the meaning of
this? No respect for the aged! Absolutely none at all.”
He stood there waving his arms and shouting at the
fog. I watched a while as best I could for not being able to
see him all that well. But it seemed to me that the more he
shouted the thicker the fog got – sort of an “I’ll Show You,
Old Man!” type of reaction. And my topknot was soaking
wet and dripping water down the back of my shirt, and my
shoes were slowly filling up with oozing muck – all of
which was very entertaining for a while, but soon lost a lot
of its charm.
“Fizban,” I said, going up to tug on his sleeve.
I guess I startled him, coming up on him suddenly out
of the fog like that.
At any rate, he apologized very handsomely for
hitting me on the nose with his staff and helped pick me
up out of the muck and patted my head until it quit
ringing. And we thought at first my nose was broken, then
decided it wasn’t and when the bleeding stopped, we
started on our way again.
We walked and we walked. Finally, Fizban said he
thought the fog had let up considerably. The result, he
said, of a marvelous spell he’d cast on it. I didn’t think it
was polite to contradict him and besides I could almost
sort of see the grass under my feet if I bent down and
looked for it, so I figured he must be right. But we slowed
our pace quite a bit, especially after Fizban walked BLAM
into the tree.
It was either right before or right after he set the tree
on fire that we came to Huma’s Tomb.
It was daylight now. (We’d spent the night getting
here.) The fog lifted just enough for us to see where we
were, which I thought was quite sneaky of the fog. Almost
like it was laughing at us.
I must tell you I was somewhat disappointed to see
Huma’s Tomb again. Not that it isn’t a wonderful place. It
is. Huma’s Tomb, for those who haven’t made the
pilgrimage there, is really a temple. It is rectangular in
shape and made out of black rock that Flint called
obsidian. The outside is carved all over with knights
fighting dragons and it is a very solemn and reverent
place.
Inside is Huma’s bier where they laid his body to rest.
And his shield and sword are still there, but his body isn’t.
The Tomb is sad because it makes you think about your
life and how you wish you’d done things better. But it’s a
good kind of sad because you realize that there’s still the
rest of your life for you to change and make better.
That was how I felt when I FIRST saw Huma’s Tomb,
but now maybe all the fog was making it look different.
All I felt now was the kind of sad that doesn’t make you
feel good inside.
“Ah, ha I” Fizban shouted. “I know where I am.”
“Huma’s Tomb,” I said.
“No!” He was thunderstruck. “Didn’t we just leave
here?”
“Yes. We must have been walking in circles. Maybe
I’ll go say good-bye to Flint, while I’m here,” I said, and
started to climb the stairs.
“No, no,” Fizban said quickly, grabbing hold of me.
“They’re not there. All gone inside the Silver Dragon
Mountain. Silvara’s taken them to the magical pool of
dragonmetal, used to forge the magical dragonlances.
Come along. We have other fish to fry.”
Well, I had to admit that the temple did look dark and
deserted now. And fried fish sounded good. So we set out.
We hadn’t taken two steps before the fog came back,
only this time it was mixed with smoke from the
smoldering tree and I couldn’t see the grass beneath my
feet. I couldn’t see my feet.
We walked and walked and walked and stopped and
rested and ate dinner. We began to walk again and Fizban
told me what a marvelous tracker he was, much better than