That funeral speech seemed to indicate that Fizban expected Tasslehoff to keep his promise. Fizban expected it because Tas was not an ordinary kender. He was a brave kender, a courageous kender, and—that dreadful word—an honorable kender.
Tasslehoff looked honor up and he looked it down. He looked it inside out and sideways, and there were just no two ways about it. Honorable people kept promises. Even promises that were terrible promises, promises that meant one had to go back in time to be stepped on by a giant and squashed flat and killed dead.
“Right! That’s got it!” said the gnome briskly. “You can put your foot down. Now, just hop along around that comer. To your right. No, left. No, right. . .”
Tasslehoff hopped, feeling the sock unravel from around his leg. Rounding the comer, he came upon a staircase. A spiral staircase. A spiral staircase made all of silver. A silver spiral staircase in the middle of the hedge maze.
“We’ve done it!” The gnome shouted ecstatically.
“We have?” asked Tasslehoff, staring at the stair. “What have we done?”
“We’ve reached the very center of the hedge maze!” The gnome was capering about, flinging ink to the four winds.
“How beautiful!” said Tasslehoff and walked toward the silver stair.
“Stop! You’re unraveling too fast!” the gnome cried. “We still, have to map the exit.”
At that moment, Tasslehoff’s sock gave out. He barely noticed, he was so interested in the staircase. The stair seemed to rise up out of nothing. The stair had no supports, but hung suspended in the air, shining and fluid as quicksilver. The stair turned round and round upon itself, leading ever upward. Arriving at the bottom, he looked up to see the top.
He looked up and up and all he saw was sky, blue sky that seemed to go on and on like a bright and lovely summer’s day, which is so bright and so lovely that you never want the day to end. You want it to go on and on forever. Yet you know, the sky seemed to say, that night must come, or else there will be no day tomorrow. And the night has its own blessing, its own beauty.
Tasslehoff began to climb the silver stair.
A few steps below, Conundrum was also starting to climb.
“Strange construction,” he remarked. “No pylons, no struts, no rivets, no balusters, no hand railings—safety hazard. Someone should be reported.” The gnome paused about twenty steps up to look around. “My what a view. I can see the harbor—”
The gnome let out a shriek that might have been mistaken for the Mt. Nevermind noon whistle, which generally goes off at about three in the morning.
“My ship!”
Conundrum dropped his maps, he spilled his ink. He dashed down the stair, his wispy hair flying in the wind, tripped over Tasslehoff’s stocking, which was tied to the end of the hedge, picked himself up and ran toward the harbor with a speed that the makers of the steam-powered, piston-driven snowshoes might have tried hard to emulate.
“Stop thief!” the gnome bellowed. “That’s my ship!”
Tasslehoff glanced down to see what all the excitement was about, saw it was the gnome, and thought nothing more about it.
Gnomes were always excitable.
Tasslehoff sat down on the stairs, put his small pointed chin in his hand and thought about promises.
Palin tried to catch up with Goldmoon, but a cramp in his leg had brought him up, gasping in pain. He massaged the leg and then, when he could walk, he limped down the stairs to find the hall in an uproar. Goldmoon had come running through like a madwoman. She had run out before any could stop her. The masters and healers had been taken by such surprise that only belatedly had some thought to chase after her. By that time, she had vanished. The entire Citadel was being turned upside down, searching for her.
Palin kept to himself what Goldmoon had said to him. The others were already speaking of her in tense whispers. Her wild talk about the dead feeding off him would only convince them—as it had convinced him—that the poor woman had been driven insane by her amazing transformation. He could still see her look of horror, still feel the powerful blow that had sent him falling back against the wall. He offered to search for her, but Lady Camilla told him curtly that both her Knights and the citadel guards had been sent to locate the First Master and that they were quite capable of handling the situation.
Not knowing what else to do, he returned to his rooms, telling Lady Camilla to be certain to notify him upon the First Master’s return.
“In the meantime,” he said to himself, sighing, “the best I can do is to leave Schallsea. I’ve made a mess of things. Tas won’t come near me, and I can’t blame him. I am only adding to Goldmoon’s burdens. Perhaps I am the one responsible for her madness!”
His guest room in the Citadel was a spacious one, located on the second floor. He had a small bedroom, a study, and a parlor.
One wall of the parlor was crystal, facing west, providing a magnificent view of sea and sky. Restless, exhausted, but too tense to sleep, he wandered into the parlor and stood gazing out across the sea. The water was like green glass, mirroring the sky. Except for a gray-green line on the horizon, he could not tell where one left off and the other began. The sight was strangely disquieting.
Leaving the parlor, Palin entered his study and sat down at his desk, thinking he would write a letter to Jenna. He picked up the pen, but the words scrambled in his head, made no sense. He rubbed his burning eyes. He had not been able to sleep all night.
Every time he drifted off, he thought he heard a voice calling to him and he woke with a start to find that no one was there.
His head sank down, pillowed on his arms. He closed his eyes.
The smooth crystal sea stole over him, the water warm and dark.
“Palin!” a voice cried, a hollow, whispering voice. “Palin! Wake up!”
“Just a moment more, father,” Palin said, lost in a dream that he was a child again. “I’ll be down—”
Caramon stood over him. Big of body, big of heart as when Palin had last seen him, except that he was wavering and insubstantial as the smoke from dying embers. His father was not alone. He was surrounded by ghosts, who reached out grasping hands to Palin.
“Father!” Palin cried. His head jerked up. He stared in amazement. He could say nothing more, only stare, gaping, at the phantasmic shapes that had gathered around him and seemed to be trying to seize hold of him.
“Get back!” Caramon shouted in that dreadful whisper. He glared around, and the ghosts shrank back, but they did not go far. They stared at Palin with hungry eyes.
“Father,” Palin said—or tried to say. His throat was so dry that the words seemed to shred his flesh. “Father, what—”
“I’ve been searching for you!” Caramon said desperately. “Listen to me! Raistlin’s not here! I can’t find him! Something’s wrong. . . .”
More ghosts appeared in the study. The ghosts surged past Caramon, over him and around him. They could not rest, could not remain long in one place. They seized Caramon and tried to carry him away, like a panicked mob that bears its members to destruction.
Exerting all his effort, Caramon broke free of the raging current and flung himself at Palin.
“Palin!” he shouted, a shout that made no sound,”Don’t kill Tas! He’s the—”
Caramon vanished suddenly. The ephemeral forms swirled a moment and then separated into ragged wisps, as if a hand had brushed through smoke. The wisps were wafted away on a soul-chilling wind.
“Father? I don’t understand! Father!”
The sound of his own voice woke Palin. He sat upright with a start, gasping, as if he’d been splashed with cold water. He stared about wildly. “Father!”