More townspeople gathered around, shouting at Kroogi to beat the knight up, but some people came who yelled for the knight to beat up Kroogi because they didn't like the fact that Kroogi was once a barbarian, even if he was a nice guy mostly and made toys at Yuletime for some families when he had the chance.
Then someone pushed someone else, and then the whole crowd was going at it and everyone was kicking and punching and shoving and flailing away, and grown men had blood coming from their noses and mouths, and their hair was pulled out, and some had clubs and hoes, and someone else screamed like he was dying, and about then I felt someone grab me around the waist and drag me off, and it was Jarvis.
"Damn you!" he shouted at me as he dragged me off. "What in the Abyss did you do now?"
So I told him, and he put me up here on the roof of the Cats amp; Kitties, where he said I couldn't cause any more trouble while he tried to restore order in town. It's nice and warm up here, and I have a great view of the town and sea and farms, but I can still hear people yelling, and some lady is wailing over and over, and I wish I had asked Jarvis for something to eat, because now I am really hungry. I think Jarvis is coming back up the ladder now, so I'd better close this up. Oops! I see that it isn't Jarvis, it's Goodwife Fils -
Report Number Four
Same day (Cotterpin says the 13th), late afternoon
Hi, Astinus. I'm a few miles outside of town now, sitting under a tree, where no one except Cotterpin can find me, I hope. This is probably my last official report to you, because there doesn't seem to be much point in continuing to try to find someone who understands why the gods got so tired of Istar, when everyone gets so upset about the whole issue and thinks either that Istar was wonderful or that Istar was bad but wasn't as bad as some other places around here that should have gotten hit with their own fiery mountains first.
My stomach hurts but I'm not hungry, and I feel just awful, like I'm going to have a good cry in a minute after I finish writing this all down, even if Ark says boys shouldn't cry, but I'm a kender and not a human so maybe it's okay if I feel bad for just a little while.
Everyone hates me, and I hate me, and I hate being a recorder, and I hate sitting out here on a rock in the wilderness because I have no one to talk to except for Cotterpin, the tinker gnome, but he's already gone to sleep in his steam-powered lawn chair under the oak tree here. Ark is going to be very disappointed that I got thrown in jail and made part of the town burn up and started a riot and everything. I'll write down how I got here, but I don't care if it's interesting or important anymore.
After Magistrate Jarvis caught Goodwife Filster on the tavern roof and wrestled with her and they both almost fell off and he took her butcher's cleaver away and made her get down the ladder again and leave me alone, he said it would be best if I left town for a while.
"How long is 'for a while'?" I asked, and he said, "Until Goodie Filster leaves town, that's how long. Maybe it would be even better if you were gone for good. Permanently. Forever."
We climbed down from the roof of the Cats amp; Kitties, and he took me by the arm and ran me back to his office. I could hear people fighting in town all the way there, and I wondered how they could keep it up for so long and wouldn't they be tired of it all by now, but obviously they weren't yet.
Jarvis kept me inside his office long enough to give me a blanket, a bag of bread rolls with no sugar, some cheese, and a skin he said was full of water but which was really only half full of ale, which I hate and have already poured out. Then he said, "Just get out of here. It's for your own good as well as everyone else's. You can't stay here any longer until Goodie Filster's out of here."
And I said, "Where can I go?" And he said, "Gods, you idiot, anywhere! Just get out of this town. She'll kill you if she sees you here!" And I said, "But what about Ark? Can't I go see Ark?" Then Jarvis called me a name that means my head looks like my backside and told me to leave, so I left.
I walked and walked until I was past the Dormens' farm, which was as far as I'd ever gone away from town in my whole life, and then I went around a hill I always used to look at when I was small but had never visited, and I looked back one last time at the town and felt like part of my insides had fallen out and been left behind, and I missed Ark terribly but didn't know if I could ever go back, because things were in such a mess.
There was smoke drifting over the town near the waterfront, but I couldn't see if it was from Goodwife Filster's bakery or someone else's place that was burning up. I turned around and walked on down the road, scuffing my feet in the dust and kicking rocks and holding my blanket and wishing I was dead.
I thought of you, Astinus, and Ark, and I was ashamed because I had promised to do my best to find out if anyone understood the Cataclysm, but I had done it all wrong and now I would never get to be a real scribe, much less an amanuensis. Even worse, I was afraid that because I couldn't find out the answer to the question, then something would go wrong someday and no one would know what to do about it and it would be all my fault.
But even this was not as bad as missing Ark, because Ark is my father, even if he isn't my real father, because he took care of me when no one else would, and I knew he would be upset with me, and I missed him so much that I just couldn't feel anything at all. I was empty inside and knew I would be empty forever. I wasn't even hungry anymore.
I walked a long time, but I didn't walk very fast. Part of me wanted to keep on walking forever, but I got so numb and tired that I found a rock under an oak tree by the road and dropped my blanket and satchel and just sat down and didn't move at all. I must have sat there a long time before I noticed that a donkey cart had stopped in front of me and the driver had come over and was asking me something. The driver was shorter than I am and had wrinkled leathery skin and a snow-white beard and eyes like the deep sky. He wore a red and brown outfit covered with belts and pockets and tools. It was Cotterpin, the tinker gnome.
Cotterpin has been visiting all the villages in a huge circle around the coast of northern Ergoth for years, and everyone knows him. When I was small, he let me play with some of the toys he had in his cart, and he was always careful to take most of them back from me so other kids could play with them in other towns, but he always left some toys behind. I think now that he did it on purpose, but I used to think he was just forgetful.
"Obviously a newly generated social outcast," he was saying to me as I sat under the oak tree. "Sociological tragedy of the first magnitude. Disgraceful phenomenon."
I just looked at him, then looked at the dirt at my feet as I had been doing for however long I'd been there. I thought for a moment that I should ask him the question you wanted Ark to ask, but I didn't want to ask anyone that question ever again. I knew if I asked him, he would hate me like everyone else hated me, and I just couldn't stand that.
Cotterpin went back to his cart and heaved something out of the back, then began to set up something beside my rock that looked like a box with a metal plate on it and a switch on one end, with red gnomish lettering all over it that I couldn't read. He fiddled with the box for a bit, then went back to the cart and got a clay mug from it and filled it with liquid from a tap on the side of his cart, then set it on the box and flipped the switch. I knew I should run or hide or shield my face when he did that, as everyone knows that gnome-built things can make craters as big as the one Istar now rests in, but I didn't feel like running, and I thought maybe it would be best if I blew up with the box.
But the box didn't blow up; it just got warm after a while and the tea in the mug got warm, too. I was trying to figure that one out while Cotterpin went back to the cart and brought back a steam-powered folding chair that also failed to blow up and which he set up next to me under the tree so he could relax in it and enjoy the same warm setting sun that I was not enjoying.