Wanderlust Page 9
Gaesil downed the last of his ale and decided to head home as well. He fumbled through his coin purse and paid his bill, leaving a copper for the rude waiter out of habit. Stepping from the tent, he was confused about the direction to his wagon. Spotting a familiar sign above a booth near his, he hunched his shoulders against the wind and staggered toward home.
He was pulling his boots off inside his wagon when he felt a now-familiar warming sensation in the skin under the bracelet. Too tipsy to focus and too tired to care, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. But they flew open as he felt the copper bracelet being wrenched from his limp and bloody wrist. Shocked upright, he felt something hard crash upon his skull, and he wasn’t sure if it was vision or reality. And then he saw nothing at all.
“Funny thing,” said Sir Delbridge Fidington over Gaesil’s collapsed body. “I may not be a good storyteller, but I do seem to excel at thievery.”
Chapter 6
Lady in Waiting
“Honestly, Flint, it’s not my fault,” said Tasslehoff, skipping along to keep up with the pounding pace set by the angry hill dwarf. Even Tanis had to take long strides to stay next to Flint as they hurried along in the darkness of very early morning.
“All of this is your fault, kender!” the dwarf growled. “If you hadn’t lifted the bracelet to begin with, I wouldn’t be on this wild-goose chase in the dregs of the night!”
“But I’ve told you, I don’t know how the bracelet got into my pocket the second time. And I was trying to return it.… Why else would I give it to the tinker? You’ve got to believe me, Flint.”
“I don’t have to do anything but get my bracelet back,” the dwarf said, turning his bulbous nose on the kender. “And stop calling me Flint. It makes us sound like friends.”
“What should I call you, then?” asked the kender innocently.
“I’d rather you didn’t call me anything at all! I’d rather you didn’t speak to me!”
“You’re awfully testy. You’re probably just tired from all this walking, what with those stubby legs of yours,” Tasslehoff said. “Speaking of wild geese, my Uncle Trapspringer used to chase them—for the feathers, that is. Oh yes, it’s true. Goose feathers were all the rage among the rich in Kendermore. Males and females alike would wear them in their hair, put them in their pillows. Uncle Trapspringer made quite a tidy sum, he did. Spent it all on a trip to the moon.
“I almost went to the moon once myself, with a magic teleporting ring—”
“Stop that infernal chattering!” Flint screamed, clapping his thick hands to his ears.
Tanis struggled to keep a solemn face. “You were the one who insisted he come back with us when we found him in Windy Vale.”
“As a hostage, not as a torturer! I wanted him with us in case he was lying about giving that infernal bracelet to the tinker.” Flint’s eyes narrowed maliciously. “Say, aren’t hostages usually bound and gagged?”
“Yeah, but then you’d have to carry him.” Tanis laughed, then pointed ahead. “Besides, that’s the bridge over Solace Stream. We’ll be in town shortly, and soon after we’ll find that tinker and you’ll have your bracelet back.”
“I only hope Selana hasn’t come looking for it yet,” Flint muttered.
“If she has, I’ll tell her it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, but that somehow—”
Flint whirled on the kender and hoisted him up by the collar of his furry vest. “You say one word to her about this,” he threatened, “and I’ll cut out your tongue, fry it, and make you eat it!” He released Tasslehoff’s vest and continued his march.
“Well,” Tasslehoff huffed, giving Flint a haughty glance. He brushed his clothing back into place as he trotted after the dwarf. “That certainly isn’t friendly of you. I was just offering to help.”
Tanis patted the kender on the shoulder. “I believe Flint feels you’ve helped enough for one lifetime, Tasslehoff.”
Flint just snorted.
They reached the south edge of Solace just as the thin edge of daybreak showed in the east. Tanis was all for going home first to wash away the grime from a day on the trail. A faint stubble of beard that no elf could grow covered his cheeks, an inheritance from his human father. Flint would have none of it.
“You can wash and change all day long after I get my bracelet back.” If the tinker was using Flint’s stall, as the kender had predicted, then he probably had spent the night there in his wagon like most out-of-town merchants, the dwarf reasoned. He marched the kender and half-elf to the festival grounds on the west edge of town. A few of the fair workers were up and moving about, collecting water and starting breakfast fires. Flint ignored their friendly calls and marched the bedraggled party straightaway to his booth.
“He was here, all right,” the dwarf said, noting the sign above the planks, as well as some tools inside the curtained area. Flint pushed his way through the curtains and emerged out back to find the tinker’s wagon.
“That’s it! That’s Bella!” Tasslehoff crowed as he pushed his way through the curtains and around Flint. The horse was tethered to one of the stall’s supports.
Shoulders set, Flint stomped toward the door at the back of the wagon. Tanis grabbed at his belt and yanked him to a stop.
“You can’t just barge in on a sleeping man at the crack of dawn and demand your bracelet like a lout,” the half-elf cautioned.
“Whyever not?” Flint demanded, eyes narrowed. “It’s my bracelet and I want it back, and he’s sleeping in my stall and I want it back as well.”
“OK,” Tanis said, conceding his points, “but at least try to be civil with him. It’s not his fault he has the bracelet.” Two sets of eyes, one furious, the other mildly amused, turned toward the kender.
Seeing the conversation taking an ugly spin, Tasslehoff danced to the wagon’s door. “He knows me. I’ll go first. It’s probably locked, so I’ll just—” Most people would have said “knock,” but Tasslehoff was about to say “pick the lock” when he noticed that the door was already ajar.
“That’s strange,” Tas said softly. “You’d think he’d be more careful. I don’t mean to sound unkind, but people who work fairs are not considered to be the most trustworthy types.”
“Something they have in common with kender,” Flint muttered. Tas’s little face glared down at him. “But you’re right, something seems amiss here.” Frowning, Flint climbed the two crates used as steps, elbowed his way past the kender, and pushed the door open gingerly. Peeking under Flint’s arm, Tas gasped.
The lanky tinker lay on the floor amid his tools, his head, and the floor around it, caked in thick blood. The dwarf scrambled through the door and dropped to one knee to check the human for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” both Tas and Tanis asked.
A fairly strong throbbing met the two fingers Flint pressed to the man’s wrist. “No, luckily. It must look worse than it is. Kender, go find some water,” he instructed without looking up. Tasslehoff grabbed a copper pan from a hook on the wall and dashed out the door, for once without a question.
Tanis located a passably clean cloth and ripped it into strips, while Flint raised the tinker’s head onto his lap and cautiously examined the wound. “He has a lump the size of a harpy egg.” The man groaned and stirred when Flint gently probed the tender spot.
The man’s bloodshot eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Flint’s ruddy cheeks in confusion. “Don’t I know you? … yes … What are you doing in my wagon?” He winced, raising a hand to the lump on his head; he shivered when he saw the blood. “Good heavens, I feel like a sausage. What happened?”
“We’re hoping you can tell us that,” Tanis said at his side. He handed Flint one strip of cloth and mopped at the blood on the floor with another.
“I’m not sure … wait.… The last thing I remember was the ale tent. I was celebrating something … drank too much of that rot-gut.…” He rubbed his temples. “That’s it! I’d had a good sales day, because of … the bracelet.”
“Oh, yes, the kender …” Still a bit groggy, Gaesil shook his head to clear it, then groaned from the throbbing pain. “I would have given it to you on the bridge if I’d known who you were.… It’s right here on my wrist, for safekeeping.” Gaesil groped around on his right arm, his eyes growing wide in confusion, then concern. “Why, it was right here!”
Flint’s own eyes narrowed with displeasure. “Where is it?” He ran his hands up both of Gaesil’s arms. “You’re lying to me!”
“Wait, Flint,” Tanis said softly. “He seems genuinely bewildered.”
“I am! I swear to you!” Gaesil’s expression changed suddenly. “I remember now! The bard! He was the one! He came in here last night. He must have hit me on the head and taken the bracelet.”
“Now why would someone take a little copper bracelet like that? Surely there are more valuable things in here,” Flint said, not convinced.
Gaesil looked scornful. “You think I own something more valuable than a bracelet with magical power? Look around. Everything you see is exactly what it looks like.”
“What power?” Flint demanded. “That bracelet has no magical power. What are you talking about? Speak up, man!”
Gaesil struggled out of Flint’s lap and sat up. “I don’t know how to explain it, really. Suddenly and without warning it gets warm—almost hot—and then, instantly, you know something, like you had just remembered it. Only you never knew it before because it hasn’t happened yet! It’s very strange.”
“You mean you hallucinate?” Tanis asked, confused.
Gaesil shook his head. “No, … well, sort of. What I mean is, it’s like a memory, only you know that it’s completely new. Sometimes it’s like a vision, something you see in your mind. Sometimes it’s long, other times it’s just a single picture or thought. But whatever it is, it actually comes true shortly after you see it.”
“The bracelet I made foresees the future? Bah!” Flint snorted. He rolled his eyes at such a silly notion.
“I bet it does,” Tasslehoff called from the door. He had returned with the water and stopped at the entrance, listening. “Hi, Gaesil. Sorry about your head. But the same thing happened to me—seeing the future, I mean. Once I saw a spider in my pack before I even opened it. Good thing, too. And then there was that nasty little encounter with the hobgoblins.…” Tas quickly went on to explain to Tanis and Flint what had happened when he wore the bracelet before meeting the tinker.
Flint still looked skeptical. “You’re the last one I’d believe about such nonsense, kender.”
“Wait a minute, Flint,” Tanis said again, scratching his chin. “Didn’t you say this woman—Selana—gave you special elements and ingredients to blend into the metal? Components you had never seen before? You said yourself she was very mysterious about the request and secretive about herself. It would explain why she paid you so handsomely.”
Flint could no longer dismiss the evidence. He sat and held his head in his hands. “Now what do I do? It was bad enough when I thought I had lost an ordinary bracelet. But if this thing can do what you say it can, Selana is going to be even more upset about its loss.”
“A woman, you say?” Gaesil asked. “An odd-looking woman with pale skin and incredible blue-green eyes stopped by the booth yesterday looking for you. She seemed perturbed when I told her you were gone.”
“Oh, gods, that’s her!” Flint moaned, tearing at the wisps of his graying hair. “I’ve just got to get that bracelet back before she finds me!” He whirled on Gaesil. “Did she say where she was staying? If she’d come back? Did she seem angry?”
“Never mind her,” Tanis said. “How do you propose to find the bracelet when it was stolen by someone we can’t begin to trace, or even identify?”
“I’m sure it was the bard,” Gaesil said firmly. “And I’m afraid I brought it upon myself.” Face glowing in embarrassment, the tinker recounted what he could of his conversation with the storyteller, including a description.
“How hard can it be to find someone named Delbridge Fidington?” wondered Tasslehoff.
“Near to impossible,” moaned Flint, “if we don’t know which direction he went. Besides, a weird name like that must be an alias.” The dwarf paced to and fro in the cramped interior, his heavy footfalls shaking the wagon and rattling the pans and tools hanging on the walls.
“I might have a vague idea what direction he went,” said Gaesil. All eyes turned toward him, and he continued. “Before I mentioned the bracelet to him, he spoke to me about how hard it was finding steady work as a bard. Then he said he was headed north, looking for someplace where he didn’t have to perform for low-paying ‘riffraff.’ ”
“That settles that,” announced Flint. “We’re heading north. And when I catch that thieving rascal, I’ll rattle his head right off his shoulders.”
Tanis grabbed the dwarf by the arm before he could bound through the door. “We can’t just charge off like this. Do you even know where you’re going or how to get there?”
“I’m going north,” the dwarf blustered, “and I’ll get there by putting one boot in front of the other, not by sitting here.”
Tanis tried to reason with his friend. “This trip will take several days, Flint, maybe longer. We can’t just charge off like this. We’ve been walking all night, we haven’t eaten, and we have no supplies of any kind.”
Flint slammed his fist into the doorjamb of the wagon. “I can’t just sit idle, Tanis. This was important before, and it’s doubly so now that we know there’s sorcery involved.” He closed his eyes and shuddered at the thought—dwarves had an innate distrust of all things magical. “Mind you,” he said, looking out of the corner of his eyes, “I have a few choice words for any customer who just happens to forget to mention such things.”
He set his jaw firmly, his expression resigned. “Still, I’m a man of my word. If this mysterious woman comes back and I haven’t got the bracelet, her components, or even the money she advanced me, even a kender,” he said with a glance toward a glowering Tasslehoff, “could see there’ll be dishonor to my name. Now what do you propose I do?”
Tanis stood up, twisting his body forward slightly in the low-ceilinged wagon. “We’ll go home, get a few hours’ sleep, pick up food and clothing, and then start.”
“No, we can’t delay,” the gruff dwarf said with a shake of his shaggy gray head. “I’ll grant you we need supplies, but then we’ll set out again immediately.”
Now Tanis objected. “Flint, I’m exhausted! It’s been a long night.”
Flint pinched the tender flesh on Tanis’s upper arm. “You’ve grown soft over winter,” he chided his young friend. “Stay home and get your beauty sleep if you must,” he said. “I’ll be gone, however, before the morning sun crests the trees, with or without you.”
Sighing, the half-elf adjusted his feathered headband, retying the leather thongs behind his head. “All right,” he sighed, knowing full well he would never change the stubborn old adventurer’s mind. “We’ll do it your way.”
“Fine.” Flint’s head bobbed once in satisfaction. “Get what you need and be at my house in twenty minutes.”
With that, the short and tall figures scrambled out of the wagon and set off down the muddy lane at a trot.
Tasslehoff, still busy applying layer after layer of bandages to Gaesil’s sore head, glanced impatiently around the wagon, looking for something with which to secure the cloth. Seeing nothing within reach, he finally snatched Gaesil’s hand and slapped it onto the carefully folded wad of cloth covering his laceration. “Hold that here,” Tas instructed briskly, then he leaped to his feet and sprang out the door after the rapidly disappearing companions.
“But wait!” cried Gaesil, reaching lamely after the kender. “What about me?” His voice trailed off, and then he was alone, except for Bella, who was mewling for her breakfast.
Tasslehoff caught up with Flint and
Tanis about fifty yards down the road. “Boy, this is exciting,” he chirped. A chase! What fun!”
Flint stopped dead in the road. “What makes you think you’re coming? I didn’t invite you, and I don’t want you tagging along, so get lost.”
But the tenacious kender had no intention of staying behind. “You need me. I have the maps of the north—I think.”
Flint looked to Tanis for support, but found none. “If he’s got maps, he could be a big help, Flint,” said the half-elf.
“It was looking at his maps that got us into this trouble in the first place.” The exasperated dwarf flung his arms in the air. “But fine, let him come. Let’s invite everyone we meet. By the time we get to wherever we’re going, we’ll have a whole army. We can lay siege to the town. But let’s do it now!” he shouted as he resumed his charge down the road.
Two steps later, Flint stopped again. “Wait a minute! What are we doing? I can’t go home.” A look of panic crossed his face. “If Selana’s in town somewhere, she’ll undoubtedly come by my house looking for me. I know it might sound cowardly, but I can’t face her without the bracelet!” He looked sheepish. “I just want a chance to set things right first. You’ll have to fetch my things, Tanis.”
“But what if she sees me?” he objected.
“Back up that tinker’s tale—tell her I was unexpectedly called out of town for a few days. Or tell her I was kidnapped. I don’t care, tell her anything, just stall her off!”
Tanis rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not going to lie to her, Flint. You know I’m no good at it anyway. We need a better story than this.”
“Look, it’s not a lie,” pleaded Flint. “I am leaving town unexpectedly for a few days. I’ll go right now and wait for you along the road, if that would make you feel better.”