Sara gazed at them, unblinking, for several long minutes. Bits of memory, odd visions, and the feeling of something urgent floated around in her mind. "I don't know…" she replied, her thoughts fuzzy. "I didn't mean to."
"Ahh! Of course," the female kender snapped her fingers. "She's sick."
Sara noticed she was lying across the stone steps of some building at such an angle that the steps were digging into her back and shoulders. It was dark and a light snow fell around her. What an odd place to be, she mused. So thick and unwieldy were her thoughts, she gave up trying to make sense of anything and turned her attention toward making her body move.
The male kender patted Sara's shoulder and proffered a small hand to help her up. He was about the same height as his companion. He had the same apple-round face, bright brown eyes, and an abundant head of redbrown hair tied in a topknot with a strip of yellow leather.
"My name is Badger Coltsfoot, and this is my sister, Lemmi. Who are you? You don't look sick, but you look awfully tired. Do you know someone in the tomb? Is that why you're here? We don't get many dragon riders around here."
Sara shook her head to stem the flow of questions. "Is Badger your name or what you do?" she asked with a small chuckle. She took his hand and let him slowly pull her up to a sitting position.
Her head suddenly reeled, and for a moment she thought she would faint. She leaned her head between her knees and took several deep breaths.
"Oh, what do you have in your hand?" Lemmi asked curiously. "It's beautiful."
Sara didn't know she had anything in her hand. Curishe looked down at her right hand resting on her lap and saw that her fingers were tightly clenched over something small that glowed with its own soft white light. The light leaked between her fingers and made her skin glow red from the blood within.
Sara choked on a cry. Her fingers opened, and there on her palm lay an elven jewel, carved in the shape of a star and hung on a slender steel chain. The only time she had seen that jewel before was the day Steel received it from his father, Sturm Brightblade, in a vision at the tombs in the High Clerist's Tower. As far as she knew, he had carried it ever since.
Like the flare of a lamp in a darkened room that lights everything around it, the star jewel pulsed through the dark confusion of her brain and illuminated her thoughts and memories with pure clarity. Everything fell into place.
Yet it all seemed so unreal. She twisted around and saw that the silver door to the tomb was closed tightly and the lamp was back on the wall. If it were not for the star jewel in her hand, she would have thought she had dreamed the whole thing.
Sara realized this was too important to deal with alone, and besides, she could barely sit, not to mention stand or walk or summon Cobalt for a ride. Her legs were numb, and her hands were patched white with frostbite. She was trembling so badly, she could barely hold the jewel. She needed help.
The young kender watched her expectantly.
Remembering who she was dealing with, Sara slipped the steel chain over her head and tucked the jewel into her tunic. Badger looked slightly disappointed.
"Do you know the Inn of the Last Home?" she asked both kender.
Their faces lit up and Lemmi giggled. "I should say we do. The innkeeper just threw us out a little while ago."
Sara frowned. That did not bode well for a message she wanted to send. Nevertheless, she didn't have anyone else. "Could you please go to Caramon Majere and tell him I'm here? Tell him my name is Sara Dunstan and I need his help. Again."
Badger shrugged lightly. "Sure. Need anything else? Our tents are right over there. We're camping here for a few days while we visit the tomb and pay our respects to our Uncle Tas. We've met some fun people here. There was-"
Lemmi tugged his arm, cutting off his enthusiastic explanations. "I think we'd better go see Innkeeper Majere, Badger, before it gets too late. We can tell Sara about our new friends later."
Sara silently blessed the more practical Lemmi. She watched the two kender trot off into the darkness toward the distant lights of Solace. Now she could only sit and hope that Caramon or Tika would listen to the kender and come find her.
Time lost all meaning for Sara, sitting by the tomb in the snowy night. She paid no heed to the cold or the darkness or the fact that her feet had no feeling. All she could think about was Derrick, Steel, and the jewel that hung about her neck. She did not even see Caramon and Tika come huffing out of the darkness.
"Look!" she heard Tika Majere call. "It is Sara! Blessed Paladine, what are you doing out here?"
Sara looked up at the faces of her rescuers and burst into tears.
An hour later she was comfortably ensconced in a large chair in front of a roaring fire in the main room of the Majeres' inn. Tika had replaced Sara's damp, frosted clothes with dry ones and wrapped her in blankets while Caramon carefully removed her boots and set about treating her frostbitten hands and feet with warm water and gentle massage. She sat back in her chair and grinned stupidly while the two bustled around her and exclaimed over her condition. A mug of hot mulled wine was pressed into her hand, and Tika brought her a plate heaped with Otik's famous spiced potatoes, heaps of roasted meat, a wedge of golden cheese made only in Solace, and enough spice cakes to feed an army.
The two kender who brought the Majeres naturally had to see what was happening, so they had followed Caramon, with Sara in his arms, back to the inn and made themselves at home near Sara. She was too grateful to to them to ask them to leave, so she pushed several spice cakes in their direction and fell on her own meal like a ravenous wolf. It was the best food she'd had since leaving Connersby.
Once Sara's immediate needs were seen to, Tika and Caramon pulled chairs to her table to join her. She grinned her appreciation at them between bites and took the opportunity to study her friends.
She had met both Majeres that night nine years ago when she came begging Caramon for his help. Despite her ties to the Knights of Takhisis and her wild tale of Steel's parentage, he had believed her, and with his friend, Tanis Half-Elven, had taken Steel to the High Clerist's Tower to see the body of their friend, Sturm. It was during that visit that Steel was met by the spirit of| his father and given the elven star jewel.
Although the visit had not persuaded Steel as Sara hoped it would, she had been indebted to the Majeres their trust and help. She stayed with them for several months after Steel returned to Storm's Keep and left only because she did not want to endanger them with her presence. She decided a small, isolated village far from Solace would be safer for them all, so she had wandered to Solamnia and eventually found Connersby. She had not seen the Majeres again until this night.
She was pleased to see they had not changed very much in the past nine years. Tika's bright red hair had mellowed to a rich roan of gray and red, and her face had more wrinkles than Sara remembered, but her figure was still youthful, and her beauty had ripened to a full blush.
Caramon was much the same as ever-bluff, hearty, and softhearted. If the big man was a little rounder in his barrel chest and a little more worn around the face, Sara put it down to the years and to the grief of losing his two oldest sons during the Summer of Chaos.
When Sara finished her plate at last and pushed it away with a sigh of contentment, Tika whisked it away and came right back to the table. The Majeres exchanged a glance between them to see which one would speak first.
It was Tika who refilled Sara's mug and said bluntly. "Sara, we are so glad to see you. But what are you doing here dressed in the clothes of a dragon rider?"
With that simple question, Tika opened a floodgate in Sara's reserve. She had been so careful, so contained while in Neraka, she hadn't realized how much she missed having someone safe to talk to. She wrapped her hands around her mug and said to warn them, "It's a long tale."