“Do you go straight home to Solace?”
“No, not—not quite yet,” Caramon said, his voice low. “We’re going back to Solanthas with Tanis. Then, when—when I feel a little more myself, I’ll use the magical device to get back to Solace.”
Crysania gripped his hand tightly, drawing him near to her.
“Raistlin is at peace, Caramon,” she said softly. “Are you?”
“Yes, my lady,” Caramon said, his voice firm and resolute. “I am at peace. At last.” He sighed. “I just need to talk to Tanis and get things sorted out in my life, put back in order. For one thing,” he added with a blush and a shame-faced grin, “I need to know how to build a house! I was dead drunk most of the time I worked on ours, and I haven’t the faintest notion what I was doing.”
He looked at her, and she—aware of his scrutiny though she could not see it—smiled, her pale skin tinged with the faintest rose. Seeing that smile, and seeing the tears that fell around it, Caramon drew her close, in turn. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have spared you this—”
“No, Caramon,” she said softly. “For now I see. I see clearly, as Loralon promised.” She kissed his hand, pressing it to her cheek. “Farewell, Caramon. May Paladine go with you.” Tasslehoff snuffled.
“Good-bye, Crysani—I mean, Rev-revered Daughter,” said Tas in a small voice, feeling suddenly lonely and short. “I-I’m sorry about the mess I made of things—”
But Lady Crysania interrupted him. Turning from Caramon, she reached out her hand and smoothed back his topknot of hair. “Most of us walk in the light and the shadow, Tasslehoff,” she said, “but there are the chosen few who walk this world, carrying their own light to brighten both day and night.”
“Really? They must get awfully tired, hauling around a light like that? Is it a torch? It cant be a candle. The wax would melt all over and drip down into their shoes and say—do you suppose I could meet someone like that?” Tas asked with interest.
“You are someone like that,” Lady Crysania replied. “And I do not think you ever need worry about your wax dripping into your shoes. Farewell, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. I need not ask Paladine’s blessing on you, for I know you are one of his close, personal friends... .”
“Well,” asked Caramon abruptly as he and Tas made their way through the crowd. “Have you decided what you’re going to do yet? You’ve got the flying citadel, Lord Amothus gave it to you. You can go anywhere on Krynn. Maybe even a moon, if you want.”
“Oh, that.” Tas, looking a little awestruck after his talk with Lady Crysania, seemed to have trouble remembering what Caramon was referring to. “I don’t have the citadel anymore. It was awfully big and boring once I got around to exploring it. And it wouldn’t go to the moon. I tried. Do you know,” he said, looking at Caramon with wide eyes, “that if you go up high enough, your nose starts to bleed? Plus it’s extremely cold and uncomfortable. Besides, the moons seem to be a lot farther away than I’d imagined. Now, if I had the magical device—” He glanced at Caramon out of the corner of his eye.
“No,” said Caramon sternly. “Absolutely not. That’s going back to Par-Salian.”
“I could take it to him,” Tas offered helpfully. “That would give me a chance to explain about Gnimsh fixing it and my disrupting the spell and—No?” He heaved a sigh. “I guess not. Well, anyway, I’ve decided to stick with you and Tanis, if you want me, that is?” He looked at Caramon a bit wistfully.
Caramon replied by reaching out and giving the kender a hug that crushed several objects of interest and uncertain value in his pouches.
“By the way,” Caramon added as an afterthought, “what did you do with the flying citadel?”
“Oh”—Tas waved his hand nonchalantly—“I gave it to Rounce.”
“The gully dwarf!” Caramon stopped, appalled.
“He cant fly it, not by himself!” Tas assured him. “Although,” he added after a moment’s profound thought, “I suppose he could if he got a few more gully dwarves to help. I never thought of that—”
Caramon groaned. “Where is it?”
“I set it down for him in a nice place. A very nice place. It was a really wealthy part of some city we flew over. Rounce took a liking to it—the citadel, not the city. Well, I guess he took a liking to the city, too, come to think of it. Anyway, he was a big help and all, so I asked him if he wanted the citadel and he said he did so I just plunked the thing down in this vacant lot.
“It caused quite a sensation,” Tas added happily. “A man came running out of this really big castle that sat on a hill right next to where I dropped the citadel, and he started yelling about that being his property and what right did we have to drop a castle on it, and creating a wonderful row. I pointed out that his castle certainly didn’t cover the entire property and I mentioned a few things about sharing that would have helped him quite a bit, I’m certain, if he’d only listened. Then Rounce starting saying how he was going to bring all the Burp clan or something like that and they were going to come live in the citadel and the man had a fit of some sort and they carried him away and pretty soon the whole town was there. It was real exciting for a while, but it finally got boring. I was glad Fireflash had decided to come along. He brought me back.”
“You didn’t tell me any of this!” Caramon said, glaring at the kender and trying hard to look grim.
“I-I guess it just slipped my mind,” Tas mumbled. “I’ve had an awful lot to think about these days, you know.”
“I know you have, Tas,” Caramon said. “I’ve been worried about you. I saw you talking to some other kender yesterday. You could go home, you know. You told me once how you’ve thought about it, about going back to Kendermore.”
Tas’s face took on an unusually serious expression. Slipping his hand into Caramon’s, he drew nearer, looking up at him earnestly. “No, Caramon,” he said softly. “It isn’t the same. I-I can’t seem to talk to other kender anymore.” He shook his head, his topknot swishing back and forth. “I tried to tell them about Fizban and his hat, and Flint and his tree and... and Raistlin and poor Gnimsh.” Tas swallowed and, fishing out a handkerchief, wiped his eyes. “They don’t seem to understand. They just don’t... well... care. It’s hard—caring—isn’t it, Caramon? It hurts sometimes.”
“Yes, Tas,” Caramon said quietly. They had entered a shady grove of trees. Tanis was waiting for them, standing beneath a tall, graceful aspen whose new spring leaves glittered golden in the morning sun. “It hurts a lot of the time. But the hurt is better than being empty inside.”
Walking over to them, Tanis put one arm around Caramon’s broad shoulders, the other arm around Tas. “Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” Caramon replied.
“Good. The horses are over here. I thought we’d ride. We could have taken the carriage, but—to be perfectly honest I hate being cooped up in the blasted thing. So does Laurana, though she’ll never admit it. The countryside’s beautiful this time of year. We’ll take our time, and enjoy it.”
“You live in Solanthas, don’t you, Tanis?” Tas said as they mounted their horses and rode down the blackened, ruined street. Those people leaving the funeral, returning to pick up the pieces of their lives, heard the kender’s cheerful voice echo through the streets long after he had gone.
“I was in Solanthas once. They have an awfully fine prison there. One of the nicest I was ever in. I was sent there by mistake, of course. A misunderstanding over a silver teapot that had tumbled, quite by accident, into one my pouches...
Dalamar climbed the steep, winding stairs leading up to the laboratory at the top of the Tower of High Sorcery. He climbed the stairs, instead of magically transporting himself, because he had a long journey ahead of him that night. Though the clerics of Elistan had healed his wounds, he was still weak and he did not want to tax his strength.