“I don’t see him. Say, if he does take your soul, Flint, can I watch?”
“You’re a fine friend!” Flint lowered the hammer, but he kept it in his hand, just in case.
“I hope he doesn’t,” said Tas politely, and he truly meant it. Well, he mostly truly meant it. “But if he does—”
“Oh, just shut your mouth. We’ve wasted enough time palavering with that thing, whatever it was. We have to find Arman.”
“No, we have to find the Hammer,” Tas argued, “otherwise Kharas will win the bet and take your soul.”
Flint shook his head and walked off, heading for the stairs again.
“Are we going back inside the secret passage?” Tas asked as they were climbing. “Say, you know, we never went all the way to the top of these stairs. Where do you suppose they lead? What do you think is up there? Was it on the map?”
Flint stopped on one of the stairs, turned around and raised his fist. “If you ask me another question, I’ll… I’ll gag you with your own hoopak!”
He began to clump up the stairs again, stifling a groan as he did so. The stairs were steep, and as Raistlin had reminded him, Flint wasn’t a young dwarf anymore.
Tas hurried along after, wondering how someone could be gagged with a hoopak. He’d have to remember to ask.
They arrived at the place where the secret passage had been, only to find that it wasn’t there any longer. The stairs behind which it was hidden had been shoved back into place, and try as he might, Flint could not open them again. He wondered how Arman had discovered the passage. The ancient dwarf who claimed to know Kharas probably had something to do with it. Glowering and muttering to himself, Flint climbed the stairs to the top.
Once there, he consulted the map. They’d reached the second level of the tomb. Here were galleries, antechambers, a Promenade of Nobles, and a banquet hall.
“The Thanes would have attended a grand feast in honor of the fallen king,” Flint murmured. “At least, that was what Duncan intended, but his burial feast was never held. The Thanes were fighting for the crown. Kharas was the king’s sole mourner.” Flint glanced about the darkness and added grimly, “And whoever lifted up the tomb and set it floating among the clouds.”
“If they didn’t hold the feast, maybe there’s some food left,” said Tas. “I’m starving. Which way’s the banquet hall? This way?”
Before Flint could answer, the kender was off, racing down the hall.
“Wait! Tas! You doorknob! You’ve got the lantern!” Flint shouted into the fog-ridden gloom, but the kender was out of sight.
Heaving a sigh, Flint stamped off in pursuit.
“Drat,” said Tas, looking over the banquet table that was empty of everything except dust.
“Nothing. I suppose mice ate it, or maybe that Kharas did. Oh well. After three hundred years, the food probably wouldn’t have tasted that good anyhow.”
Tas wished again he’d brought his pouches. He could generally find something to snack on in there—the odd meat pie, muffin, or grapes that weren’t bad once you removed the bits of fluff. Thinking of food made him hungrier, however, and so he put the thought out of his mind. The banquet table held nothing interesting. Tas wandered about, searching for a forgotten crumb or two. He could hear Flint bellowing in the distance.
“I’m in the banquet hall!” Tas called out. “There’s no food, so don’t hurry!” That prompted more bellowing, but Tas couldn’t understand what Flint was saying. Something about Arman.
“I guess I’m supposed to look for him,” Tas said, so he did call out his name a couple of times, though not with much enthusiasm. He peered under the table and poked about in a couple of corners.
He didn’t find Arman, but he did find something, and it was a lot more interesting than an arrogant young dwarf who always said the word “kender” as though he’d bitten down on a rotten fig. In a corner of the room was a chair, and beside the chair was a table. On the table was a book, pen, and ink, and a pair of spectacles.
Tas held the lantern close to the book, which had squiggles on the cover. He guessed it was something else written in Dwarvish. Then it occurred to him that maybe the writing was magic and this might be a magic spellbook, like those Raistlin kept with him that Tas was never allowed to even get a little tiny peek at, no matter that he promised he would be extra, extra careful, and not crease the pages, or spill tarbean tea on it. As for the spectacles, they were ordinary looking, or would have been ordinary if the glass inside them had been clear like other spectacles the kender had seen and not ruby-colored.
The kender was torn. He started to pick up the book, then his hand hovered over the spectacles, then went back to the book. At last it occurred to him that he could do both—he could put on the spectacles and look at the book.
He picked up the spectacles and slid them over his ears, noting, as he did so, that they appeared to have been made just for him. Most spectacles were way too big and slid down his nose. These stayed put. Pleased, he looked out through the glass and saw that the ruby glass made the redtinged fog even redder than it had been before. Other than that, the spectacles didn’t really do anything. They didn’t make his eyes go all blurry as did other spectacles. Thinking that these spectacles weren’t good for much, Tas picked up the book.
He scrutinized the title. “‘Being a History of Duncan, High King of Thorbardin, with Full and Complete Accounts of the Ogre Battles, the Dwarfgate Wars, and Subsequent Tragic Ramifications Involving Civil Unrest.’ Whew!” Tas paused to straighten out his tongue that had gotten all tangled up over that last bit.
Flint came peering through the fog. “Tasslehoff, you rattle-brain, where have you gotten to?” Tas snatched off the spectacles and thrust them in one of his pockets. He had found them lying about, which made them fair game, but he wasn’t certain Flint would see it that way, and Tas didn’t want to waste time arguing.
“I’m over here,” he called.
“Doing what?” Flint demanded, seeing the light and bearing down on him.
“Nothing,” Tas said, hurt. “Just taking a look at this old book. I can read Dwarvish, Flint. I can’t speak it or understand it, but I can read it. Isn’t that interesting?”
Flint took away the lantern and glanced at the book. “That’s not Dwarvish, you ninny. I don’t know what it is. Any sign of Arman?”
“Who? Oh, him. No, but take a look at this book. It’s about King Duncan. The title says so, along with a bunch of other stuff about rams and civil unrest.”
He stopped talking, because suddenly he couldn’t read the title. The words had gone back to being squiggles, whorls, dots, dashes and curlicues. When he’d seen them through the spectacles, they had been words. When he looked at them now, with the spectacles tucked in his pocket, they weren’t. Tas had a sneaking hunch he knew what was going on.
He glanced about to see if Flint was watching. The dwarf was calling out Arman’s name, but no one answered.
“I don’t like this,” Flint muttered.
“If he is out there searching for the Hammer, he wouldn’t be likely to tell us where, would he?” Tas pointed out. “He wants to beat us to it.”
Flint grunted and rubbed his nose, then muttered again and pulled out the map. Holding it in his hand, he went over to stare and poke at a wall. He looked at the map, then looked back, frowning, at the wall. “Must be a hidden door here somewhere.” He started to tap the wall with his hammer. “According to the map, the Promenade of Nobles is on the other side, but I can’t figure out how to get to it.”
Tas took out the spectacles and held them to his eyes and looked down at the book. Sure enough, the Ramifications and Subesquents were back. Tas peered through the spectacles at Flint, to see if they made the dwarf look different.
Flint looked the same, rather to Tas’s disappointment. The wall, however, had changed a good deal. In fact, it wasn’t a wall at all.