Owen could tell the most interesting stories about when
he was a mercenary and he said I was as good a listener as
his son, though I asked too many questions.
We went on like this and were really having a good
time and so I guess I have to admit that I didn’t really mind
that we took the wrong way. We’d been wandering around
lost for about four days when it quit snowing and the sun
came back.
Owen looked at the sun and frowned and said it was
on the wrong side of the mountains.
I tried to be helpful and cheer him up. “If Tarsis By
the Sea could move itself away from the sea, maybe these
mountains hopped around, too.”
But Owen didn’t think much of my suggestion. He
only looked very worried and grim. We were in the
Wasted Lands, he said, and the bay we could see below us
(Did I mention it? There was a bay below us.) was called
Morgash Bay, which meant Bay of Darkness and that, all
in all, we were in a Bad Place and should leave
immediately, before it Got Worse.
“This is all your fault!” Fizban yelled at me and
stamped his foot on the snow. “You and that stupid map.”
“No, it isn’t my fault!” I retorted. (Another good word
– retorted.) “And it isn’t a stupid map.”
“Yes, it is!” Fizban shouted and he snatched his hat
off his head and threw it on the snow and began to stomp
up and down on top of it. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”
Right then, things Got Worse.
Fizban fell into a hole.
Now, a normal person would fall into a normal hole,
maybe twist an ankle or tumble down on his nose. But no,
not Fizban. Fizban fell into a Hole. Not only that but he
took us into the Hole along with him, which I considered
thoughtful of him, but which Owen didn’t like at all.
One minute Fizban was hopping up and down in the
snow calling me a doorknob of a kender (That wasn’t
original, by the way. Flint yells that at me all the time.)
and the next the snow gave way beneath his feet. He
reached out to save himself and grabbed hold of me and I
felt the snow start to give way beneath my feet and I
reached out to save myself and grabbed hold of Owen and
the snow started to give way beneath his feet and before
we knew it we were all falling and falling and falling.
It was the most remarkable fall, and quite exciting,
what with the snow flying around us and cascading down
on top of us. There was one extremely interesting moment
when I thought we were going to all be skewered on the
dragonlances that Owen had been carrying and hadn’t had
time to let go of before I grabbed him. But we weren’t.
We hit bottom and the lances hit bottom and the snow
that came down with us hit bottom. We lay there a little
bit, catching our breath. (I left mine up top somewhere.)
Then Owen picked himself up out of a snowbank and
glared at Fizban.
“Are you all right?” he demanded gruffly.
“Nothing’s broken, if that’s what you mean,” Fizban
said in a sort of quavery-type voice. “But I seem to have
lost my hat.”
Owen said something about consigning Fizban’s hat to
perdition and then he pulled me out of a snowbank and
stood me up on my feet and picked me up when I fell
back down (my breath not having made it this far yet) and
he asked me if I was all right.
I said yes and wasn’t that thrilling and did Fizban
think there was the possibility we could do that again.
Owen said the really thrilling part was just about to begin
because how in the name of the Abyss were we going to
get out of here?
Well, about that time I took a good look at where we
were and we were in what appeared to be a cave all made
out of snow and ice and stuff. And the hole that we’d