Well, Toede could change just as much. He was quite proud of his newfound nobility. True, he had been doubtful, even challenging the fates, but once he made up his mind, he had stuck to his choices. He saved Groag, saved the scholars, and saved himself. And had got a ready supply of good food in the process.
So why did he feel displeased with the entire turn of events? Not just Groag, but the fact that both Renders and Charka failed to recognize his heroic efforts. The gem Renders had given him was a nice touch, but instead of making him feel as though he had been rewarded, he felt as though he had been cheapened, almost insulted.
Apparently there was more to this nobility thing than just acting in a self-destructive manner.
Was all nobility just a scam, then, an excuse to advance one's own case and position, and then have people thank you for it? That didn't seem right, from what he knew of the noble heroes Renders was babbling on about. If anything, the Dragonlance heroes seemed to settle for far less than their actions had earned them, but perhaps that was only to gain some greater advantage later on. His reward for doing the "right and noble" thing was more tangible: the feast.
It was finally ready by midafternoon, and turned out to rival the best of the halls of the Silvanesti, though served on cruder dishware than elves would ever tolerate. Groag proved to be an expert chef once given proper ingredients, and the boar had been roasted to the point where the meat fell off at a touch and melted on the tongue. It had been seasoned in a gravy with herbs and nuts. Scholar, gnoll, and hobgoblin ate until they could eat no more, and afterward Groag threw spiced potatoes wrapped in wet burlap onto the coals to cook for dessert, while Renders continued the tales from the War of Lance for the entire assemblage.
"And so our heroes passed through this very land, on the way to the town of Floating Junk. And there the Master of Few reigned, but he was so afraid of the heroes that he hid from them, and let the Dragon Highlord Small-Cat-Crown seek them out…"
"I wasn't hiding," muttered Toede, "I was busy." He wandered a little way off from the main group, sated but far from satisfied. The boar was the first good meal in how many months? Over a year, really, unless he counted the goose sandwiches the kender girl had packed. And that had been six months ago.
The former Evil Slaver, former Master of Few, former Highmaster of Flotsam, perhaps future Lord of some place unknown and unrevealed, sat at the base of a tilted pillar and tried to sort out the various conflicting feelings that jousted in his head and heart. Or at least tried to, for the combination of a full belly and over a day without sleep finally caught up with him, and within moments he was snoring softly.
Toede dreamed, and it was more than a standard dream of hobgoblins. His dreams (at least the ones he remembered) were usually monochromatic nightmares, the color blood red or deathly gray. Old fears rising, old enemies returned, old battles fought or fled.
But this dream was different. It had the soft texture of a well-rendered oil painting, a glow that seemed to diffuse in all directions. The color of ghosts walking in the evening light.
He awoke in the dream and knew in a moment that it was a dream, for reality did not possess this fairyland beauty. He was still in the forest of stone, but things had changed.
The inscribed plinths were there, but the birch trees around them were gone, and the tilted and overturned pillars had been righted. Now they glowed with an eldritch power all their own. There was laughter in the air, from voices unseen in the darkness, and lithe ghosts moving and dancing at the edges of his vision. Toede could not look directly at them, for they reveled just beyond his conscious grasp and melted into darkness as soon as he focused on them. Yet what little he saw of them, from the corners of his eyes, told him they were fair of form. Toede knew he was dreaming, for this beauty did not immediately turn his well-fed stomach.
Where earlier the cooking fire had been, there was now a tall, glowing woman, who did not fade when Toede stared at her. She was clad in shades of blue and white, and her hair was the color of yellow stained glass. She lit the pillars around her with the power of her aura.
She smiled at Toede, and when she did Toede felt the bottom fall out of his world. She motioned; he followed her.
The blue woman and Toede traveled through the forest of stone as dreamers travel, ignoring the briars, brambles, and bumps in the path, but instead gliding smoothly over the surface, ignoring everything in their way. Occasionally the blue woman would point at a particular landform- such as cleaved rock, or a boulder that looked particularly like a hawk-as they ascended to the west into hillier country that was (would be?) the necromancer's territory.
At length the travelers reached a low hillock that was not a hillock at all, but a great stone temple. The ghost-ogres were burying the temple in a great mound of dirt, and Toede saw that the lower reaches were already covered in grass and small trees.
The blue woman led Toede to the entrance of the temple. The ghost-ogres ignored the pair entirely. Then she motioned, and the great iron doors parted at the top of the temple stairs, and both she and Toede were bathed in a great golden radiance.
Toede awakened with a start to find that it was much later in the evening. The campfire had been broken down to little more than embers, and the gnolls were scattered around the ground, where they had drifted off to sleep among the remains of the burlap potato wrappers. There was no sign of Groag, Renders, or any of the humans.
Someone had left a cloak draped halfway on Toede, so the hobgoblin drifted back off to sleep. Now he slept more soundly, without dreams, for the shadow-gods had judged him, and now he knew what the rewards for his noble actions truly were to be.
Chapter 16
"I don't feel comfortable about this," said Bunniswot, stopping and rubbing his left shin again. He had injured said limb after the first rock slide, and had been carrying on and limping ever since, seeking sympathy just because he was the one carrying the pack and shovels. "Let's go back and get a few more people."
Toede shook his head and turned to look at the human, amazed to find someone in worse physical shape than himself. Sweat was running down Bunniswot's face, and from his higher elevation, Toede for the first time noted that the human had a small bald patch on the back of his head.
"We could go back," said the former highmaster, "and get some help from Renders, and explain to him why following a hunch was more important than your ogrish erotica."
Bunniswot winced at the suggestion. "Or," Toede added slyly, "we could count on Charka to send a few of his boys into territory that is not only taboo, but under the control of a known, dangerous necromancer. Risk two of his tribe to me and a man called- now what did he name you?"
"Whacks-the-Rabbit," said Bunniswot in a mild voice. His encounters with the gnolls had not been as positive as those enjoyed by Renders.
Toede nodded, continuing, "If I'm right, and by the powers I believe in I think I am, you'll have something really important to take back to Renders." And with that he resumed climbing, not bothering to add that, if Groag had been on speaking terms with Toede, he'd much rather have taken the smaller hobgoblin as opposed to a hapless human.
"Seems like a lot to stake on a dream," said the young scholar, scrambling after him. "It's not very professional."
"Don't discount dreams, child," said Toede. "Raistlin dreamed of sunken Istar before setting sail on the Perechon."