The kender trudged along, pondering deeply. Finally, he shook his head. “I’ve thought it over, Gnimsh. I know it’s a desperate act and one I wouldn’t ordinarily resort to, bu t I don’t think we have any choice. The situation has gotten completely out of hand.” Tas heaved a solemn sigh. “I think we should tell the truth.”
Gnimsh appeared extremely alarmed at this drastic action, so alarmed, in fact, that he tripped over his apron and fell flat on the ground. The guards, neither of whom spoke Common, hauled him to his feet and dragged the gnome the rest of way, coming at last to a halt before a great, wooden door. Here other guards, eyeing the kender and the gnome with disgust, shoved on the doors, slowly pushing them open.
“Oh, I’ve been here!” Tas said suddenly. “Now I know where we are.”
“That’s a big help,” Gnimsh muttered.
“The Hall of Audience,” Tas continued. “The last time we were here, Tanis got sick. He’s an elf, you know. Well, half an elf, anyway, and he hated living underground.” The kender sighed again. “I wish Tanis was here now. He’d know what to do. I wish someone wise was here now.”
The guards shoved them inside the great hall. “At least,” Tas said to Gnimsh softly, “we’re not alone. At least we’ve got each other.”
“Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” said the kender, bowing before the king of the dwarves, then bowing again to each of the thanes seated in the stone seats behind and on a lower level than Duncan’s throne. “And this is—”
The gnome pushed forward eagerly. “Gnimshmari—”
“Gnimsh!” Tas said loudly, stepping on the gnome’s foot as Gnimsh paused for breath. “Let me do the talking!” the kender scolded in an audible whisper.
Scowling, Gnimsh lapsed into hurt silence as Tas looked around the hall brightly.
“Gee, you’re not planning a lot in the way of renovation the next two hundred years, are you? It’s going to look just about the same. Except I seem to remember that crack there—no, over there. Yes, that one. It’s going to get quite a bit bigger in the future. You might want to—”
“Where do you come from, kender?” Duncan growled.
“Solace,” said Tas, remembering he was telling the truth. “Oh, don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it. It doesn’t exist yet. They hadn’t heard of it in Istar, either, but that didn’t matter so much because no one cared about anything in Istar that wasn’t there. In Istar, I mean. Solace is north of Haven, which isn’t there either but will be sooner than Solace, if you take my meaning.”
Duncan, leaning forward, glowered at Tas alarmingly from beneath his thick eyebrows. “You’re lying.”
“I am not!” Tas said indignantly. “We came here using a magical device that I had borrowed—sort of—from a friend. It worked fine when I had it, but then I accidentally broke it. Well, actually that wasn’t my fault. But that’s another story. At any rate, I survived the Cataclysm and ended up in the Abyss. Not a nice place. Anyway, I met Gnimsh in the Abyss and he fixed it. The device, I mean, not the Abyss. He’s really a wonderful fellow,” Tas continued confidentially, patting Gnimsh on the shoulder. “He’s a gnome, all right, but his inventions work.”
“So—you are from the Abyss!” Kharas said sternly. “You admit it! Apparitions from the Realms of Darkness! The blackrobed wizard conjured you, and you came at his bidding.”
This startling accusation actually rendered the kender speechless.
“Wh—wh”—Tas sputtered for a moment incoherently, then found his voice—“I’ve never been so insulted! Except perhaps when the guard in Istar referred to me as a—a cut—cutpur—well, never mind. To say nothing of the fact that if Raistlin was going to conjure up anything, I certainly don’t think it would be us. Which reminds me!” Tas glared back sternly at Kharas. “Why did you go and kill him like that? I mean, maybe he wasn’t what you might call a really nice person. And maybe he did try to kill me by making me break the magical device and then leaving me behind in Istar for the gods to drop a fiery mountain on. But”—Tas sighed wistfully—“he was certainly one of the most interesting people I’ve ever known.”
“Your wizard isn’t dead, as you well know, apparition!” Duncan growled.
“Look, I’m not an appari—Not dead?” Tas’s face lit up. “Truly? Even after you stabbed him like that and all the blood and everything and—Oh! I know how! Crysania! Of courses Lady Crysania!”
“Ah, the witch!” Kharas said softly, almost to himself as the thanes began to mutter among themselves.
“Well, she is kind of cold and impersonal sometimes,” Tas said, shocked, “but I certainly don’t think that gives you any right to call her names! She’s a cleric of Paladine, after all.”
“Cleric!” The thanes began to laugh.
“There’s your answer,” Duncan said to Kharas, ignoring the kender. “Witchcraft.”
“You are right, of course, Thane,” Kharas said, frowning, “but—”
“Look,” Tas begged, “if you’d just let me go! I keep trying to tell you dwarves. This is all a dreadful mistake! I’ve got to get to Caramon!”
That caused a reaction. The thanes immediately hushed.
“You know General Caramon?” Kharas asked dubiously. “General?” Tas repeated. “Wow! Won’t Tanis be surprised to hear that? General Caramon! Tika would laugh... . Uh, of course I know Cara—General Caramon,” Tas continued hurriedly, seeing Duncan’s eyebrows coming together again. “He’s my best friend. And if you’ll only listen to what I’m trying to tell you, Gnimsh and I came here with the magical device to find Caramon and take him home. He doesn’t want to be here, I’m sure. You see, Gnimsh fixed the device so that it will take more than one person—”
“Take him home where?” Duncan growled. “The Abyss? Perhaps the wizard conjured him up, too!”
“No!” Tas snapped, beginning to lose patience. “Take him home to Solace, of course. And Raistlin, too, if he wants to go. I can’t imagine what they’re doing here, in fact. Raistlin couldn’t stand Thorbardin the last time we were here, which will be in about two hundred years. He spent the whole time coughing and complaining about the damp. Flint said—Flint Fireforge, that is, an old friend of mine—”
“Fireforge!” Duncan actually jumped up from his throne, glaring at the kender. “You’re a friend of Fireforge?”
“Well, you needn’t get so worked up,” Tas said, somewhat startled. “Flint had his faults, of course—always grumbling and accusing people of stealing things when I was truly intending to put that bracelet right back where I found it, but that doesn’t mean you—”
“Fireforge,” Duncan said grimly, “is the leader of our enemies. Or didn’t you know that?”
“No,” said Tas with interest, “I didn’t. Oh, but I’m sure it couldn’t be the same Fireforge,” he added after some thought. “Flint wont be born for at least another fifty years. Maybe it’s his father. Raistlin says—”
“Raistlin? Who is this Raistlin?” Duncan demanded.
Tasslehoff fixed the dwarf with a stern eye. “You’re not paying attention. Raistlin is the wizard. The one you killed—Er, the one you didn’t kill. The one you thought you killed but didn’t.”
“His name isn’t Raistlin. It’s Fistandantilus!” Duncan snorted. Then, his face grim, the dwarven king resumed his seat. “So,” he said, looking at the kender from beneath his bushy eyebrows, “you’re planning to take this wizard who was healed by a cleric when there are no clerics in this world and a general you claim is your best friend back to a place that doesn’t exist to meet our enemy who hasn’t been born yet using a device, built by a gnome, which actually works?”
“Right!” cried Tas triumphantly. “You see there! Look what you can learn when you just listen!”
Gnimsh nodded emphatically.