"And you would be?"
"A spirit of wisdom," said the pixie. "A warning from the future. A voice of reason. The animated urge of learning."
'This is a multiple-choice test, I assume," said Toede.
"Mock not," said the spirit in blue and silver and white, "for he does mean you harm."
"So you say," said Toede. "Perhaps I should have Rogate take care of him."
"Trust not Rogate, either," said the spirit, "for he means you ill as well."
"He is a traitor too?" asked Toede.
"Only to himself," said the pixie. "For you scrambled his mind in your first meeting, in the tavern in Flotsam.
With every moment he spends with you, his mind clears, and soon he will realize that he was given the holy task to kill you."
"Hmmmm," murmured Toede, "then perhaps Charka and Renders can take care of them, but I suppose they are also…"
"Traitors," piped up the small creature. "They have been compromised by the necromancer, who also means you harm."
"That I never would have guessed," said Toede sarcastically.
The spirit pixie overlooked his attitude. "They have been promised dominion over Flotsam if they arrange for you to die in battle. Renders is to remain at your side, and slip a dagger between your ribs during the heat of combat."
Toede rubbed his chin again. "Then perhaps we should get the loyal kender rabble to throw these dastards into a makeshift brig, then execute the lot of them at dawn."
"Alas!" said the pixie.
"Let me guess…" said Toede. 'The kender mean me harm, too."
'The girl is loyal only to her father, who reserves a deep and abiding hatred for you." The pixie bowed its head remorsefully. "You are surrounded by treacherous servants."
"And to think that they don't realize they are all traitors," said Toede. "If only they were organized, they could have killed me days ago."
If the pixie was aware of sarcasm, it did not show on the being's delicate elfin features. "There is but one hope," it said, and Toede could almost hear inspirational music rising up around it.
"You must leave this place," the pixie said sternly. "Take the horse that Bunniswot brought, and ride to the south and east. You will find a small inn, with a single light in the window. Knock on the door and ask for shelter. They will take you in. With you absent, the attack will succeed, but the alliance will fall in upon itself, and the city will be wracked by civil war."
"You're saying I should flee like a coward," said Toede, leaning forward.
"It is the only way." The pixie nodded. "To save my own hide," said Toede, reaching up and curling his fingers around the edges of the book. "At the cost of my good name."
"You must leave now if you are to avoimmmmphl" The pixie's voice was stifled as Toede slammed the massive volume closed. He counted to ten, then opened the book. Only a small singed spot on the pages reassured him that it had not all been a dream.
"Surprisingly," he said aloud to the smoking scorch mark, "I've been thinking the same things myself. Why would these good and, yes, noble people throw in with one such as I? I have been assigning them all sorts of evil motivations and reasons, and my guts have been twisted trying to figure it out.
"But your appearance, dear little singe," said the smiling hobgoblin, "confirmed my hypothesis. Twice now I thought I had things locked up to retake my throne, and twice now something materialized to swat me away. This time, my common sense says flee, and it is bolstered by a supernatural apparition. I have reached a decision."
Toede closed the book again, softly now, and took it with him as he left the tent. He padded back to the fire. Renders was finishing some saga involving gnomes and boats and gold dragons. Charka and Taywin were listening intently, while Kronin and Rogate were sketching lines in the dirt to hone battle plans. Bunniswot, one of the many accused assassins present, was curled up on his side, snoring softly.
Toede kneeled by Taywin, and asked quietly if she had a perfume bottle. She looked at him oddly, then nodded. He sent her to fetch it, along with whatever passed for a priest of the True Gods among the kender. Then the former highmaster handed the massive tome to Renders. Toede returned to the fire and built it up with a few logs, "raising a shower of sparks.
"If s going to be a long night," said Toede. "For a lot of people here, it will be their last one. If we're not going to sleep, we might as well know what we're fighting for."
Renders nodded and picked up the tome, starting to read where Toede himself had recently left off. The old scholar's voice started shakily, but soon he caught the cadence of the writing, the words falling from his tongue like petals. Bunniswot awoke with a snort and wiped the sleep from his eyes. Rogate and Kronin stopped their dirt-scribbling, and gnolls and kender, themselves unable to sleep, began to filter back into the glow of the campfire. Taywin returned with the holy kender and a spray bottle of perfume, and Toede spoke with the priest briefly and softly, then sent him to carry out his appointed duties.
Toede spent the remainder of the evening looking into the flames of the rebuilt fire, throwing on another branch or log whenever Renders reached the end of a parable. It seemed that the former highmaster was only half listening, but rather searching for something that could only be read in the dancing tongues of the flame.
Chapter 25
By the time dawn crested the overcast bay to the east, Toede had his unified Allied Rebellion entrenched in the last hedgerow, about a hundred yards from the broken-toothed south wall. Toede had no doubt that the Flotsam defenders had seen his men (really, gnolls and kender), for there was a massing movement along the walls and in the gaps, both southern gates had been hastily closed and shuttered, and no wains or other traffic were visible on either road.
Beyond the walls, the Rock rose on the far side of the city, and from the Rock a new architectural monstrosity. It looked like something out of an elven tale of old, for it glittered like a ruby in the ruddy dawn. On the site of Toede's old manor there was now a castle of classic proportions, with tall, needle-thin spires that seemed to bob and weave in the wind like woozy drunkards. Toede wondered if the swaying spires had been erected as watch-towers, and chuckled at the thought of the constitutions of the poor fools who were obliged to man them.
The clouds broke for a moment. A single ray of light crossed the skies, glancing against the topmost spire and refracting it like a beacon across the surrounding farmland.
Toede covered his eyes for a moment from the intensity of the red-hued beam, and when he refocused them, saw that there was a growing consternation across the field. Some soldiers were moving away, others digging into more defensible positions. Then the first shouts reached his ears, and he saw columns of smoke rising from his left, on the north and west sides of the city.
The necromancer's troops had made their assault against the most heavily protected section of the city, the part lined with solid walls. Toede had to admit he was impressed by the undead horde engaged in what was fated to be a suicidal charge. Toede would have to pick up some of the unusual warriors for himself for his next war.
And thinking of suicidal charges, he had his own to direct. He spurred Bunniswof s mount, a coal-black gelding named Smoker, to the front of the hedgerow, and spun the horse around, facing the troops.
He had half a hundred good speeches stored up, invigorating words he'd heard proclaimed by dragon high-lords in order to goad their terrified troops into battle. Glory, loot, the advancement of their way of life, threats, the entire gamut. But as he spun about to face the troops- the gnolls in their war paint and the suddenly somber kender-the lines of communication between his mind and mouth were suddenly cut, the conversational bridges vanished, and the mental cues seemed to scatter on the cold dawn breeze.