The view from the bridgewalk allowed him to see quite a distance. He looked down at a smithy, where the blacksmith
Theros Ironfeld toiled at shoeing the lively stallion of a robed human who was pacing with impatience.
A seeker, Flint thought sullenly, and his mood darkened.
It seemed the seekers were everywhere these days. The sect had arisen from the ashes of the Cataclysm, which was itself caused by the old gods in reaction to the pride and misdirec tion of the most influential religious leader at the time, the
Kingpriest of Istar. This group, calling themselves seekers, loudly proclaimed that the old gods had abandoned Krynn.
They sought new gods, and sometime during the three cen turies since, the seekers claimed to have found those gods.
Many of the folk of Abanasinia had turned toward the flick ering promise of the seekers' religion. Flint, and many oth ers of a more pragmatic nature, saw the seekers' doctrine for the hollow bunk that it was.
They could be recognized by their brown and golden robes, these seeker missionaries who rode about the plains collecting steel coins for their coffers. Most of them at the missionary level were the young, bored malcontents who grew up in every town. The promise of money and power, if only over people desperate for a sign that gods existed, seemed to lure these spiritual bullies like a magnet. They were molded into persuasive salesmen by an intensive "training" session in the seeker capitol of nearby Haven, and they claimed to have converted thousands to their cause.
The seekers were as close as anything to the governing body of the plains. A body with muscle, of course: seeker followers were equally divided between the zealous acolytes who taught the words and ways of the new gods, and the men-at-arms who garrisoned the towns for no discernible purpose.
Unfortunately, groused the dwarf to himself, their con cept of governing seems to involve little more than mooch ing off the towns and villages unlucky enough to host their temples and guardposts.
Flint's mood dipped even farther when he noticed a group of seekers hovering around the doorway to Jessab the
Greengrocer's. He recognized this bunch as rude, belliger ent, over-postulating phonies who couldn't cure a split fin ger any more than they could speak with their so-called gods. In one of the few times Flint had ventured from his home in the last month, he had come upon a villager chok ing on a bite of meat. This very group had been summoned to help, and after much desperate prodding from the small, gathered crowd, the leader of the three, a pimply young whelp, had sighed and gesticulated uselessly above his head as if casting a clerical spell. No miracle appeared. The vil lager had gasped his last before the other two could try to help him. The three had shrugged in unison and then headed into the nearest inn, unconcerned.
Flint could feel his face tighten with anger now as he con sidered the cluster around the doorway. Novices, he noted, from their coarse white robes edged with embroidered hem lock vine and the all-too-familiar emblem of a lighted torch on the left breast.
"Who are you staring at, little man?" one of them de manded, his arms crossed insolently.
Flint's eyes narrowed in irritation, but he let a shake of his head and a snort of disgust suffice to answer the question.
Tipping his head slightly, he made to squeeze his way be tween them and into the greengrocer's.
A bony finger poked him in the shoulder, scarcely enough pressure for the dwarf even to notice. "I asked you a ques tion, gully dwarf." The seeker's friends laughed at the insult.
Flint stopped but did not raise his eyes. "And I believe I gave you as much answer as your kind deserves."
Egged on by his friends, the young seeker pressed his point. "You've got an awfully smart mouth for an outnum bered old man," he growled, stepping fully in front of Flint.
He reached down to grab the dwarf's lapels.
"Teach him a lesson, Gar," a crony purred in anticipation.
Flint's irritation turned to fury. He looked into the face of his antagonist. What he saw was the glee-and-fear mixed ex pression of an animal who was closing on an easy victim. Or so the seeker thought.
Flint decided that the fellow needed a lesson in humility and manners. Moving like lightning, he drove his fist into the boy's belly. Stunned, the youth doubled over and clutched at his stomach. The dwarf's stubby fingers flew up to pull the seeker's droopy, coarse hood down over his red face. Flint quickly drew the strings tight and knotted the hood shut, until only the boy's pimply nose poked out.
Flailing his arms desperately, the seeker let out a screech and tumbled to the planks of the bridgewalk.
Flint was dusting off his hands when his sharp dwarven ears picked up the familiar "whoosh" of blades being un sheathed. Whirling around with stunning quickness, the stocky dwarf knocked the small daggers from the other seekers' hands. The metal weapons glinted in the sun as they flew over opposite sides of the bridgewalk.
"Daggers! Look out below!" Flint called over the railing in case anyone stood beneath. Looking down, he saw a few villagers scatter without question, and the blades fall harm lessly, point down, into the earth.
When Flint looked up again, he saw the backs of the seek ers as they fled, the two toadies pulling their still-hooded, stumbling leader after them.
"Run home to your mothers, you young whelps!" Flint was unable to resist shouting. My, but it's a fine day, he thought, looking up into the blue sky before stepping spirit edly into the greengrocer's.
Amos Cartney, a human of some fifty years, owned and ran Jessab the Greengrocer's. Flint could not enter the shop without remembering the time he, Tanis, and Tasslehoff had stopped in for some snacks to bring to a night of fellowship before Flint's hearth, shortly after Tasslehoff's arrival in Sol ace, some years ago.
"Hey, Amos, who is Jessab, anyway?" Tasslehoff had blurted out of the blue, plucking at items of interest on the candy counter. "Must be someone important, for you to name your store after him. I mean, your name is Amos
Cartney, not Jessab."
Knowing the answer through local gossip, Flint had tried desperately to clap a hand over the kender's big mouth. But the quick-footed imp had danced away. "Watch out, Flint I
You nearly suffocated me," he had scolded the dwarf. "Your father, maybe?" he pressed, turning back to the suddenly pale shopkeeper. "Grandfather? Hmm?"
"The man who owned the store before me," had been Amos's quiet reply.
"That's it?" Tas squealed.
"Mind your own business, kender!" Flint had growled low in his throat.
But Amos waved away the dwarf's concern. "No, he stole my wife and left behind this shop. I leave his name up to re mind me how fickle women can be, in case I'm ever tempted to trust one of them again."
The tender-hearted kender's eyes had filled with tears, and he came to Amos's side to pat the human's shoulder, treasures newly "found" in the shop dropping from his pockets in his haste. "I'm so sorry… I didn't know…"
A slight, stoic smile had creased Amos Cartney's face as he gently slipped his hand from the anxious kender's. "And you know what else? I haven't been tempted, all these ten years."
Flint secretly agreed with Amos's evaluation of women — he'd had some bad experiences of his own — and from that time forward, the human and the dwarf were friends.
Seeing Flint in his doorway now, the greengrocer wiped his hands on his apron and waved the dwarf inside, a hearty grin on his face.
"Didn't bring that nosy kender with you, I see!" He snick ered, continuing to wave Flint forward. "Hurry on in. I've been having some trouble with seekers hanging around the doorway, pestering my good customers. Can't seem to get rid of 'em." Amos shook his balding head wearily.
Flint patted his old friend on the back. "Tas has gone ex ploring for five years. And I don't think those seekers will be bothering anyone for a while, either."