He discovered right off that he wasn’t the first person to do this. He came upon a trail scored with deep wagon ruts. The trail was old and unused, for weeds were growing in the wagon ruts. But Tas could see that heavily laden wagons had traveled back and forth across it for some time. The kender was excited. Not only was this a cave, it was a mine!
He imagined those wagons laden with gold or silver or maybe even iron ore to be turned into steel, then the most valuable commodity on Krynn. No wonder the town of Pigeon Falls had appeared to be so prosperous.
He continued following the trail, speculating on what might have happened to end the mining. Perhaps there had been a collapse or the mine had run out of ore, or…
And then there was the answer right in front of him on a wooden sign on a stake that had been hammered into the ground.
WARNING!
MINE CLOSED!
HERE BE DRAGONS!
“How exciting!” exclaimed Tasslehoff Burrfoot. His bad day had turned good. “This, is definitely better than pigeons.”
He kept going, picking up his pace.
Tasslehoff passed by several more signs on his way to the cave, all of them announcing that here be dragons. This was, of course, meant as a warning to stay away and would have, been taken as such by most people, but kender are not most people. Besides being extremely curious, kender are utterly fearless—a volatile combination, as anyone who has ever adventured with a kender (and managed to survive) will tell you.
Not that kender are foolhardy. Tasslehoff did not think of himself as jauntily walking into the jaws (literally) of death. His friend, Tanis Half-Elven, was always encouraging Tas to consider if a proposed action by the kender was “conducive to long life”. Tas did consider this, though he generally ended up doing what he wanted to anyway.
On this occasion, his thinking went something along these lines: “Yes, there’s a dragon, and dragons are extremely dangerous and not at all conducive to long life, but the dragon is probably out. I’ll just look over his treasure horde a bit and see if I come across anything interesting.” Or: “The dragon will probably be sleeping. They do sleep a lot, you know. I’ll just look over his treasure horde a bit and see if I come across anything interesting.”
There was always the possibility that the dragon might be in and he might be awake, but Tas considered the odds of that pretty low (one in three). And if the dragon was there and he was awake and in a bad mood and decided to eat the kender, well, there had never yet been a kender who died peacefully in his bed of old age. Tasslehoff had no intention of being the first.
As stated, Tas was not foolhardy. Arriving at the mouth of the cave, he did not immediately charge inside. He stopped to look about for signs of recent dragon activity—scales sparkling in the dirt, enormous footprints scorch marks on the walls, etc. He saw nothing. He cocked an ear and listened for sounds of a dragon. Dragons always had stentorian breathing (whatever a stentorian was; Tas thought it might be some sort of whistle). He listened for sounds of a large creature shuffling about, stomping its feet, lashing its tail. He heard nothing. He sniffed the air for the scent of brimstone, but he didn’t smell anything, either.
“I wonder if he moved?” Tasslehoff asked himself, disappointed. It seemed his bad day was going to continue. Everyone knew that when a dragon moved, he took his treasure with him.
The mouth of the cave was large and opened into an even larger chamber, so large that, peering up, Tas could not see the ceiling. Dusk was making the cave dusky and, the next thing Tas knew, a swarm of bats flew down around him, wheeling and dodging, flying off to find dinner. Tas ducked his head to keep the bats from mussing his topknot and thought glumly that here was another sign that the dragon had departed. No self-respecting dragon shares his cave with bats.
Tas almost turned back, but then decided that since he’d come all this way, he might as well explore a bit. After all, he could possibly come across the odd jewel-encrusted chalice the dragon had accidentally left behind. Or there might be a bugbear living here. While not as good as a dragon, a bugbear was better than nothing.
Tas continued on and his perseverance was rewarded. He made a wonderful discovery. Several very fine brass lanterns had been left at the opening of a mining shaft. The lanterns were neatly arranged on the cavern floor and they had apparently been here awhile, for they were covered with dust and bat droppings. Tas, who had neglected to bring a torch, was pleased. He did wonder, as he picked up one of the lanterns and examined it, who could have left such expensive lanterns here and why they hadn’t come back to retrieve them. The most obvious answer was that the owners had all died horribly in the mine, but Tas chose to take the optimistic view that they had been so loaded up with treasure they had no room in their wagon.
A rummage through several pouches produced not one tinderbox, but three. He also found several candles. He placed one in the lantern and had it lighted in no time. Lantern in hand, he continued on his way down the mine shaft.
The shaft sloped downhill at a steep angle. He occasionally passed carts that had once been loaded with ore, but which were now loaded with bat droppings.
He kept walking.
The shaft went on a for a long way without ever seeming to get to where it was going, and he had to admit that it did not appear to be leading to a dragon or even a bugbear. Tas stopped every so often to look and listen and sniff and smell nothing. He was starting to grow discouraged and bored and was rummaging in his pouch for something to eat, when his light glinted off metal.
Tas found a piece of armor—a greave or some such thing—that had been discarded, probably due to a broken strap. The armor was covered in dust. Tas picked it up and brushed it off. Like the lanterns, the piece of armor was of fine quality. Tas stuffed it in one of his pouches and kept going. Here was a puzzle.
Armor meant knights. Knights traipsing about an abandoned mine meant they were likely hunting the dragon. But the dragon-hunting knights had apparently not slain the dragon, otherwise they would have removed the signs warning HERE BE DRAGONS. (Or at least put up a sign that said HERE NOT BE DRAGONS.) The logical conclusion was that the dragon had been the winner. But, in that case, where was the dragon? Hence, the puzzle.
Tas continued going down the mine shaft. The candle burned so low he had to replace it, and still he kept going. Then, about half way through the next candle, the shaft made a sharp turn and suddenly deposited Tasslehoff in a huge chamber that was amazingly (considering it was a couple of miles underground) brightly lit.
Tasslehoff almost dropped his lantern and stared, astonished. He was more astonished than he’d ever been in his life and that was saying something, considering that he’d traveled back in time with Caramon, and visited the Abyss with the Dark Queen and taken a flying citadel out for a spin, and done a lot of other truly astonishing things. He’d never seen anything like this, however.
The floor of the chamber was covered with knights—all of them dead. Tas did not have to look twice to see they were dead, for the knights were nothing but steel and bone. Some of the dead knights had lances or spears in their bony hands. Others had swords. Tas didn’t know what had killed them, but he figured it was probably the dragon—the large blue dragon that was glaring down on him from high up above him.
The very fierce large blue dragon.
“Hullo, up there,” said Tasslehoff and he gave a little gulp. He wasn’t afraid, mind you. Just startled.