Chapter 3

A light rain began falling at dusk as Tasslehoff, Gisella, and Woodrow rode due east of Solace. The forest surrounding the village quickly gave way to the foothills of the Sentinel Peaks. The wagon traveled steadily uphill past low scrub pines and aspen, the air scented with wet worms and bitter-sweet wild chrysanthemums. The road ran through a narrow valley between two spurs of the mountains, but it was clear and relatively rut-free. The horses plodded amiably, away from the setting sun.

Seated between Tasslehoff and Woodrow on the buckboard, reins in one hand, Gisella mopped her damp brow with a vivid, orange silk scarf.

“Gods, it’s warm,” she sighed. “That rain helps, though.

Shouldn’t be so warm this time of year.” Raindrops gathered in shimmering pools on her unusually red hair and ran through it in wavy streams.

“It’s a bad omen, I think,” said Woodrow, voicing the first opinion either the kender or the dwarf had heard from him. His almost-white hair clung to his head in wet, arrow-straight clumps. He pushed his bangs aside, sending drops of water flying in a shower.

“A bad omen?” asked Tas, whose braided topknot of hair looked the same wet as dry. Looking up at the falling rain, he tucked his parchment map into his vest to keep it dry. “What do you mean, exactly?”

“When it’s this hot in late autumn,” Woodrow began, “we’re in for a harsh winter.”

“That’s a trend or a cycle, not an omen,” Gisella commented. “I don’t believe in omens and superstitions.”

“You don’t?” said Woodrow, looking at the dwarf with an odd combination of disbelief and pity. “You mean you would actually walk past a nesting bird during a full moon? Or drink ale from a chipped flagon? Or… or even use a candle that had been lit in the presence of a dead body?”

“I don’t take any pains not to,” said Gisella. “What’s supposed to happen when I do those things?” “Oh, terrible things will happen!”

Woodrow gasped. “If you walk past a nesting bird during a full moon, all of your children will be hatched from eggs. Drinking ale from a chipped vessel means you will be robbed before the day ends.” Woodrow nibbled at his nails nervously.

“But worst of all, whoever lights a candle that was used in the presence of a dead body after the body’s been buried or burned will be visited by the spirit of the dead person.” Woodrow’s young face grew even paler. “Sometimes, if the soul is newly dead, it will take over the body of the living person!”

“That’s ridiculous!” Gisella snorted indelicately.

The horses were having a difficult time avoiding ruts in the growing darkness; she gave the reins an impatient tug.

“It’s the gods’ own truth, ma’am,” Woodrow vowed solemnly.

“I don’t believe in any such things, including the gods,”

Gisella mumbled under her breath. “Tell me, Woodrow,” she said more loudly, “have you witnessed any of these curses yourself?”

“Of course not, ma’am,” he said, suppressing a chill.

“I’ve been very careful to avoid those things.”

“It would be interesting to hatch from an egg, if you could remember it, don’t you think?” remarked Tas. But then he frowned. “I shouldn’t like to be robbed, though. But I wouldn’t mind talking to a spirit. Maybe it would tell you where its jewels and things were, since it wouldn’t need them anymore. At the very least, it could tell you what it felt like to be dead — whether you’re happy or sad all the time, or what.”

“No spirit is ever going to talk to you, Burrfoot,” Gisella laughed. “At least not while I’m available as the preferred party.”

“You shouldn’t joke about such things, ma’am,” Woodrow said softly. “Spirits don’t like that.”

“And I don’t like this discussion,” the dwarf said uncomfortably. She held a hand out, palm up. “I think the rain is beginning to let up. But it’s getting too dark for travel.” She steered the horses off the road to the right and jumped from the buckboard. Taking the horses by the bridles, she led them away from the road to a clearing that was partially screened by a high hedge of red-leafed bushes.

“Feed the horses, will you, Woodrow?” she instructed, walking past them to the back of the wagon. “And keep an eye on Burrfoot. I’m going to find someplace to take a bath.” The front of the wagon pitched up suddenly as Gisella stepped inside.

Dutifully, Woodrow slid from the wagon and unharnessed the horses. Pulling a burlap bag of dry grain from under the seat, he crooned softly to the animals and petted their silky noses. They nuzzled his hands affectionately. Setting the bag on the ground, he dipped both hands into it and pulled out two fistfuls of grain. The horses nibbled eagerly from his open palms.

When each had finished a handful of grain, Woodrow said, “I’ve got other chores that need tending, my friends.” He set out enough grain for the horses’ dinner and called, “Enjoy your food. I’ll bring you some water later.” Both whinnied contentedly.

Tas had been watching Woodrow unabashedly the entire time. “They really seem to like you,” the kender said admiringly. Woodrow shrugged, but there was pride in his smile.

“I’ve grown fond of them, too, in the few weeks I’ve been Miss Hornslager’s hired hand.” He peered around the campsite. “Help me find some big rocks to block the wagon wheels with, would you?” He strolled back toward the road, eyes scanning the ground, and Tas scurried after him, trying to help.

“Can you speak with animals?” Tas grunted as he struggled to lift a rock almost as big as his torso. “My friend Raistlin can sometimes, when he casts a spell. It’s funny, though; animals still don’t seem to like him very much.”

Woodrow shook his head. “I can’t speak to them with words, no,”

he said. “I do seem to understand them — their feelings and such -except I have trouble with lizards and some birds.” Wordlessly, the human lifted a small boulder from Tasslehoff’s straining arms. “We don’t need rocks quite this big. Why don’t you gather some wood?” The young, wiry man strode over to the wagon and dropped the stone behind one of its rear wheels. “There, that one ought to do it,” he said, kicking the stone into place. “This area is mostly level.”

Using some smaller rocks, Woodrow made a large fire circle about six feet from the wagon. After completing the circle, he found the kender at the edge of the clearing, gathering handfuls of dry pine needles for starting a fire. Woodrow collected an armload of small sticks and dry branches.

“How did you learn to do that?” Tas asked him. “Understand animals, I mean.”

“I dunno,” said the young human, shrugging. “I just watch and listen. Always have. I think anyone can understand animals. Most people just never pay enough attention.”

“Of course, Flint says I talk too much,” Tasslehoff reElected pensively. “Maybe that’s why I’ve never heard an animal talk.”

“I guess,” Woodrow said. “Anyway, I hope you can, cook something. Miss Hornslager can’t even boil water. I try, but…”

“Oh, I’m a great cook!” Tas proclaimed modestly.

“Why, I can make rabbit gumbo and turnip dressing and even acorn pie!”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any of those ingredients,” Woodrow said sadly. “Miss Hornslager lives in the wagon year-round, so she travels light — just her possessions, and what she has for barter or as payment. I haven’t seen her do a lot of trading in the few weeks I’ve been with her — at least not for goods.” Woodrow blushed, remembering the lusty dwarf’s advances.

But Tas didn’t notice. “So what do we have on hand?”

“At the moment, we’re down to one skinny chicken, a bag of dried beans, three boIts of fabric with gold threads, two crates of merganser melons that we don’t dare touch, two live pug ferrets -which will stay that way,” he warned through narrowed eyes, “and some odd spices, most of which have to be scraped off the floor of the wagon, though there are some in jars.”

“That’s not much to work with, but I think I can do something with the chicken and the beans,” Tas replied. Woodrow looked skeptical. “You’ll find everything inside the wagon, in a cupboard toward the front. If it looks edible — except the ferrets and the melons — it’s fair game.” With that, he dropped to his haunches and set about building a cookfire.

Tas sprang into the back of the wagon, expecting to find Gisella, but the wagon was empty. Fortunately, a lighted lantern hung from a hook by the door, He looked around in astonishment. The interior looked much larger than the outside would suggest. From floor to low ceiling on the right side of the wagon were narrow shelves containing neatly stacked, corked, green apothecary jars, some empty, most full of dried herbs. The shelves held various and sundry other items, from pale yellow beeswax candles to a black velvet-covered board crammed full of rings studded with winking, colorful gems. Tas reached out a hand eagerly.

“Don’t touch the rings, whatever you do,” Woodrow called to him suddenly from outside the wagon. “The gems are fake, but Miss Hornslager trades them as real ones. She knows exactly how many she has and where each one’s place is in the velvet display board.”

Tas snatched his hand back abruptly.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, flustered, wondering if the young human could read minds as well as understand animals. “She shouldn’t leave them out where just anyone can get at them,” he murmured.

Tas dragged his eyes away from the sparkling rings and examined the rest of the wagon. Except for the far front corner, the entire left side of the wagon was covered with fluffy, overstuffed, brightly colored pillows atop a thick-piled, midnight-black fur — probably Gisella’s bed, Tas decided. In the far corner was an ornate, black-lacquered dressing screen folded accordian-style. At the rear of the wagon Tas spotted Gisella’s clothes where they were piled neatly on a stack of pillows.

His stomach growled, and he remembered why he was in the wagon.

As promised, he found a wide, shallow cupboard and opened the door.

Inside was a headless, unplucked chicken hanging from one leg, a small bucket placed beneath it to catch drops of blood. The chicken seemed pretty well drained, so Tas took it down and snatched up the bag of dried beans. He located what smelled like fennel and sage in two of the green, corked jars (but only after testing all of them, just to be sure). He also nabbed a dried-up lemon — a treat, despite the mold -and a few pans and bowls, and then left the wagon to join Woodrow by the small fire.

“Miss Hornslager is bathing in a stream on the far side of that grove of trees.” Woodrow pointed, handing a half-filled bucket of water to Tas. “Here, the horses didn’t drink this water. You can use it to flavor your cooking.”

Wrinkling his nose, Tas took the wooden vessel. He was relieved to find no foam on top, and even more so to see that the horses had their own bucket. He dumped half of the beans into a bowl, added enough of the cold, clear water to cover them, and set the bowl near the fire to warm the water and soften the beans. Finally, he stretched the chicken across his lap for plucking.

“Where did you learn to cook?” Woodrow asked, adding a few larger sticks to the flames to encourage the coals.

“Watching my mother, I guess,” Tas said. “She was a great cook,”

he said fondly. “She could turn a week-old loaf of bread into a feast!

One whiff of her mongoose pie caused riots in our neighborhood in Kendermore. In fact, she was forbidden, by order of the Kendermore Council, to make it anymore.” Tasslehoff’s eyes shone with pride.

“Was?” Woodrow said gently. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t think so,” Tasslehoff frowned, “but I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“If my mother were still alive, I’d visit her as often as I could,” Woodrow said wistfully, stirring the coals a little too vigorously. “My father, too.”

“Both your parents are dead? Gee, I’m sorry,” said Tas kindly, tearing out a handful of black feathers. “How did it happen?”

Woodrow blinked frequently. “My father came from a family of Solamnic Knights. He was raised to it — he didn’t know anything else.

He didn’t care so much about the knighthood as he did about helping people, though. And that was his downfall.”

Tas could almost guess Woodrow’s next words. He knew, from his friend Sturm Brightblade, that the Knights of Solamnia, once the peacekeepers of the realm, had lived in persecution and fear from the common people in the region of Solamnia. Many of those people wrongly blamed the knights for the Cataclysm, which Tas found difficult to understand, no matter how many times Sturm explained it. Sturm’s father was a knight who had sent his wife and then young son to the south until things quieted down. Sturm never heard from his father again.

“About ten years ago, my father came to the aid of a neighboring farmer,” Woodrow continued. “The man was wounded and claimed that several men who looked like knights had looted his home and left him for dead.

My father was trying to help the man to his feet when other neighbors, alerted by the farmer’s cries, as had my father, came storming into the cottage, bearing pitchforks and axes. They saw a Solamnic Knight standing over the injured farmer, and without a question, they struck him down.” Woodrow’s voice was even and clear, but his eyes watered. “The farmer tried to stop them, but he was too late. He tearfully told us later of my father’s senseless death.”

Tas’s tender heart was near to bursting. “And your mother?” He blew his nose on his sleeve.

“She died miscarrying my brother shortly after.” Woodrow stared into the flames.

For once Tas didn’t know what to say. Then he had an - idea.

“You could visit my parents with me when we get to Kendermore — if they’re still there, that is.”

“That’s awfully kind of you,” Woodrow said, “but it wouldn’t be the same.”

Tas frowned. “I suppose not. Is that why you’re with Gisella?”

“Sort of,” Woodrow said slowly. “After my parents died, my uncle — Father’s brother — took me in.”

“That was nice of him,” interjected Tas, trying to sound cheerful.

“Father and Uncle Gordon were very close.” Woodrow added another log to the fire. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I believe he hoped to bring my father back through me. He was always saying how much I looked like Father. Anyway, he wanted me to be his squire, and day after day we trained.” Woodrow shook his head sadly. “But I knew how — and why — my father had died. I wanted no part of the knighthood, and I told Uncle Gordon so as nicely as I could. But it was as though he hadn’t heard me. He just kept reciting the Oath and the Measure. So I had to run away.”

“Yes, I suppose you did,” Tas agreed awkwardly.

The story seemed to have drained Woodrow. He ‘ sighed heavily.

“To answer your original question, I met Miss Hornslager at a fair in Sanction. I needed a job, and she needed an assistant. So here I am.”

They were quiet for some time. Tas’s thoughts traveled back to his own family. “I have an uncle. He’s my mother’s brother, and his name is Trapspringer. You know the one — the Kendermore Council locked him up and took away his lucky finger bone because of me.” Tas looked up from the chicken at Woodrow earnestly, white and black feathers clinging to his fingers. “Would you say that’s a bad omen -having his lucky bone taken away?”

Woodrow srhiled for the first time since the conversation began.

“I wouldn’t say it was a good one.”

“Poor Uncle Trapspringer,” Tas said sadly, shaking his head as he pulled the last of the feathers from the bird. “I’ll gut it for you,” Woodrow offered, holding out his hand for the chicken. “If I learned anything from my time as a squire, it was how to dress game.”

Tas handed him the chicken. “I’ll need a spit, too,” he said to Woodrow. After wiping his palms on the grass to remove the feathers, Tas rinsed his hands with the clear water he’d set aside earlier.

Next, he drained the water from the bowl of beans. Tossing in a handful each of fennel and sage, he stirred the mixture with his hands.

Woodrow returned with the bird. “All clean and shiny and pink,”

he said, handing it over by the neck. Tas split the lemon in half and rubbed what little juice there was over the chicken, inside and out.

Next he stuffed the bean mixture into the cavity of the bird while Woodrow drove two sturdy, fork-shaped branches into the ground on either side of the fire. Tas held the stuffed chicken up and Woodrow ran a straight, thin stick through it from one end to the other.

Wordlessly, he set it on the two forked sticks with the chicken centered over the glowing coals.

“Perfect,” Tas sighed. He leaned back against a sturdy wagon wheel and closed his eyes.

“I’ll keep an eye on dinner,” Woodrow offered, but he knew the kender was already asleep. The human sat cross-legged before the fire, absently staring into the red-hot coals.

Meanwhile, Gisella scampered barefoot up the slope toward the light of the fire, stopping occasionally to pluck pine needles from the tender pads of her feet. She knew Woodrow was scandalized by her nightly forays to the nearest body of water — and to bodies of another sort when the option was available — she thought with a girlish giggle. He’d said it was rather bold of her to traipse around in the woods unclothed. But Gisella Hornslager was accustomed to taking care of herself. She found the damage from a day’s dirt and sweat grinding into her skin more upsetting than any possible encounter with a wild animal. The frigid bath by moonlight had felt divine, though now her damp skin felt cool against the night mountain air. She drew her thin wrap closer and hurried toward the promised warmth of the fire.

Gisella stopped in her tracks at the edge of the clear ing; the most delicious aroma assailed her nostrils.

“Tasslehoff’s recipe,” said Woodrow, noting the pleased expression on her face. He had removed the chicken from the fire and was in the process of sliding the bird from the stick.

Gisella rushed forward and turned over the bucket of water for a seat. Gingerly testing the temperature of the rocks around the fire with her icy toes, she found a comfortable spot. Sighing contentedly, she looked at the kender, who had woken and was holding a large tin plate under their dinner.

“Perhaps your friend, that cute halfelf, was right about one thing: maybe you are worth more than a bolt of fabric.” She snatched up a smaller plate and held it out eagerly to receive her share. “I’m starved!”

“Thank you,” Tasslehoff said, though he wasn’t sure if that had been a compliment or not. He tipped the platter so that tender, crumbly bits of chicken rolled onto Gisella’s plate, and then added a helping of bean stuffing. Tas sat back to enjoy his own meal.

Woodrow ate his share in silence, watching his employer.

Gisella’s hands were a flurry of activity, and her mouth never stopped chewing. Before Woodrow had eaten more than two bites, Gisella was finished with, hers. She sat with her arms clutched tightly about her waist, holding her wrap closed, her eyes the half-closed slits of a sleeping cat.

Woodrow had not met many women, and had come to know only a few of them, but he felt that Gisella Hornslager was not typical of her sex. She had her own rules about everything, and she seemed to care not one whit what anyone thought of her. She had a voracious appetite for food, among other things. He blushed, remembering the sound of her “trading” with men these last weeks. He’d tried not to listen to the grunts and groans coming through the wagon’s windows, but it was impossible since on those occasions she posted him right outside as watchman. Afterward, she seemed not the least ashamed to face him and, in fact, seemed to delight in bringing a flood of red to his cheeks with some earthy remark.

She was afraid of nothing — except the possibility that something she wanted could not be bought. Woodrow concluded that, although he strongly disagreed with her freewheeling lifestyle, he respected her for having the courage of her convictions.

“What are you staring at?” she demanded suddenly, her eyes wide open. She looked over his lean, muscled body with a suggestive smile on her face. “You haven’t changed your mind about my preferred payment plan?”

His gaze flew back to his plate, and he concentrated madly on his meal. “N-no,” he stuttered, blushing as usual. “I still need the steel pieces, ma’am.”

She shrugged, unoffended. “Suit yourself. You know I prefer to barter for services, whenever possible.” Gisella picked up a twig and poked it into the fire. “Let me see that map, Burrfoot,” she said.

Looking up from his plate, Tas sucked his greasy fingers loudly and reached into his vest. He handed the dwarf a folded piece of parchment. “We’ve traveled for little more than a halfday. Given that, I think we should be able to reach Xak Tsaroth by late tomorrow,” the kender predicted.

Ignoring him, Gisella tipped the map toward the firelight and peered closely.

“We’re right about here,” Tas said helpfully, jabbing at the back of the map toward the top center, at a point near the city marked Xak Tsaroth.

Gisella could see the shadow of his finger through the parchment. “Hmmm, yes,” she said. “It looks like a nice, straight shot from here to —” she looked closely all the way to the right edge “-well, all the way to Balifor.”

Tasslehoff puffed himself up. “I told you I’d get you back before your melons went bad. If there’s one thing a Burrfoot knows, it’s maps.”

But Gisella was still looking closely at the map, shak ing her head slowly. “I guess…” she mumbled. But the dwarf continued staring at the piece of paper, wondering what it was that she was missing, until the coals burned black, long after Tasslehoff and Woodrow had both curled up to sleep.