The War Of The Lance (38 page)

Owen Glendower was holding the lances in his hand - did I mention that he was very strong?
I mean, it took Fizban and me both to carry them, and here this knight was holding two of
them without any trouble at all.

I asked Fizban about this but he said it was reverence and thankfulness that gave the
knight unusual strength.

"Reverence and thankfulness. But we'll see about that

as we go along," muttered Fizban, and I thought he looked cunning again.

Owen Glendower said good-bye to Huma and was very unhappy over leaving the Tomb.

“Don't worry,” I told him. “If you haven't broken the enchantment, we'll be back.”

“Oh, he's broken it, all right,” said Fizban, and we all trooped out the door and into the
moonlight.

And then I realized that it WAS moonlight. (I told you I'd tell you all this when it came
its proper turn in the story, and this is it.) The fog was gone and we could see the
Guardians and the Bridge of Passage and behind us the Silver Dragon Mountain. And Owen was
so fascinated that we almost couldn't drag him off. But Fizban reminded him that the
dragonlances were the “salvation of the people” and this got the knight moving.

He'd had a horse, but somehow or other he'd lost it. He said that when we reached
civilized lands we'd find other horses to ride and that would get us to Lord Gunthar's
faster.

I considered telling him that Fizban could get us all to Lord Gunthar's much, much faster,
if he wanted to cast one of his spells on us. Then I thought that with Fizban's spells,
all things considered (especially my eyebrows), we might end up in the middle of the Hot
Springs. And maybe Fizban thought the same thing because he didn't mention his spells
either. So we set off, with Owen Glendower carrying the dragonlances and me carrying my
pouches and Fizban carrying a tune, sort of.

And, praise be to any and all of the gods, we did NOT go back to Huma's Tomb!

Let me point out right here and now that it wasn't my fault we ended up in the Wasted
Lands. I had a map and I told Fizban and Sir Owen we were heading the wrong direction. (It
was a perfectly good map: if Tarsis By the Sea chose to get itself landlocked, I don't see
how anyone can blame me for it!)

It was night. We were wandering around in the mountains when we came to a pass. I told
Fizban that we should go left. That would lead us out of the mountains

and take us to Sancrist. But Fizban scoffed and said my map was outdated (outdated!) and
Owen Glendower vowed he'd shave his moustaches before he ever took advice from a kender.
(Which seemed a fairly safe vow to me, considering that he didn't have all that much yet
to shave.) This after he'd admitted that he'd gotten himself all turned around in Foghaven
Vale and wasn't real sure where he was now!

He said that we should wait until morning and that when the sun came up we'd know what
direction to take, but Fizban said he had a feeling in his bones that the sun wouldn't
come up in the morning, and, by gosh, he was right. The sun didn't come up or if it did we
missed it what with the snow and all.

So we turned right when we should have turned left and came to the Wasted Lands and the
adventure, but this isn't the adventure's proper place in the story yet, so it'll have to
wait its turn.

I could tell you about the days we spent traveling through the mountains in the snow but,
to be honest, that part wasn't very exciting ... if you don't count Fizban accidentally
melting our snow shelter down around us one night while he was trying to read his spell
book by the light of a magical candle that turned out to be more magic than candle. (I got
to keep the wick)

One nice thing about that time was traveling with Owen Glendower. I was getting to like
the knight a lot. He said he didn't even mind being around me much (which may not sound
very gracious to you but is a lot more than I expected).

“Probably,” he said, “because I don't have many valuables to lose.”

I didn't quite understand that last part, especially since he kept losing what he said was
his most treasured possession: a very beautiful little painting of his wife and son that
he carried in a small leather pouch over his left breast underneath his armor.

He discovered it missing one night when we were relaxing in our snow shelter (the one
Fizban melted) and we all hunted for the painting most diligently. It was right when Owen
said he was going to turn me upside down and maybe inside out if I didn't give it back to
him that Fizban happened to find the painting inside my shirt

pocket. “See there,” I said, handing it back to Owen, "I kept it

from getting wet." He wasn't the least appreciative. For a minute I

thought he was going to throw me out off the side of the mountain and for a minute he
thought he was going to, too. But after a while he calmed down, especially when I told him
that the lady inside the painting was one of the prettiest ladies I'd ever seen, next to
Tika and Laurana and a certain kender maid I know whose name is engraved forever on my
heart. (If I could remember it, I'd tell you, but I guess that it isn't important right
now.)

Owen sighed and said he was sorry he shouted at me and he wasn't really going to slit my
pockets or maybe my gut, whichever came first. It was only that he missed his wife and son
so much and was so very worried about them because he was here in the snow with us and the
dragonlances, and his wife and son were back in their house alone without him.

Well, I understood that, even if I didn't have a wife or a son or a house anymore. We made
an agreement then and there. If I found the painting I was to give it right back to him
immediately.

And it was amazing to me that he lost that painting as often as he did, considering how
much it meant to him. But I didn't mention this to him, because I didn't want to hurt his
feelings. As I said, I was beginning to like Owen Glendower.

“Life hasn't been easy for my lady wife,” he told us one other night while we were thawing
out after having spent the day trekking about lost in the snow. "From what you've told me
about your friend Brightblade, you know how the knights have been persecuted and reviled.
My family was driven from our ancestral home years ago, but it was a point of honor among
us that someday we would return to claim it. Our holdings have passed from one bad owner
to the next. The people in the village have suffered under their tyrannies and though they
were the ones who drove us out, they have more than paid for that now.

"I worked as a mercenary, to keep body and soul alive, and to earn the money to buy back
lawfully what had been stolen from us. For I would be honorable, though the thieves that
took it were not.

“At last, I was able to save the necessary sum. I am ashamed to say that I was forced to
keep my identity as a knight secret, lest the owners refuse to sell to me.”

He touched his moustaches as he said this. They were coming out fairly well, now, and were
dark red as his hair.

"As it was, the thieves made a good bargain, for the manor was crumbling around their
ears. We have repaired it ourselves, for I could not afford to hire the work done. The
villagers helped. They were glad to see a knight return, especially in these dangerous
times.

“My wife and son toiled beside me, both doing far more than their share. My wife's hands
are rough and cracked from breaking stone and mixing mortar, but to me their touch is as
soft as if she wrapped them in kid gloves every night of her life. Now she stands guard
while I am gone, she and my boy. I did not like to leave them, with evil abroad in the
land, but my duty lay with the knights, as she herself reminded me. I pray Paladine
watches over them and keeps them safe.”

“He does,” said Fizban, only he said it very, very softly, so softly that I almost didn't
hear him. And I might not have if I hadn't felt a snuffle coming on and so was searching
in his pouch for a handkerchief.

Owen could tell the most interesting stories about when he was a mercenary and he said I
was as good a listener as his son, though I asked too many questions.

We went on like this and were really having a good time and so I guess I have to admit
that I didn't really mind that we took the wrong way. We'd been wandering around lost for
about four days when it quit snowing and the sun came back.

Owen looked at the sun and frowned and said it was on the wrong side of the mountains.

I tried to be helpful and cheer him up. “If Tarsis By the Sea could move itself away from
the sea, maybe these mountains hopped around, too.”

But Owen didn't think much of my suggestion. He only looked very worried and grim. We were
in the Wasted Lands, he said, and the bay we could see below us (Did I mention it? There
was a bay below us.) was called Morgash Bay, which meant Bay of Darkness and that, all in
all, we were in a Bad Place and should leave immediately, before it Got Worse.

“This is all your fault!” Fizban yelled at me and stamped his foot on the snow. “You and
that stupid map.”

“No, it isn't my fault!” I retorted. (Another good word - retorted.) “And it isn't a
stupid map.”

“Yes, it is!” Fizban shouted and he snatched his hat off his head and threw it on the snow
and began to stomp up and down on top of it. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

Right then, things Got Worse. Fizban fell into a hole. Now, a normal person would fall
into a normal hole,

maybe twist an ankle or tumble down on his nose. But no, not Fizban. Fizban fell into a
Hole. Not only that but he took us into the Hole along with him, which I considered
thoughtful of him, but which Owen didn't like at all.

One minute Fizban was hopping up and down in the snow calling me a doorknob of a kender
(That wasn't original, by the way. Flint yells that at me all the time.) and the next the
snow gave way beneath his feet. He reached out to save himself and grabbed hold of me and
I felt the snow start to give way beneath my feet and I reached out to save myself and
grabbed hold of Owen and the snow started to give way beneath his feet and before we knew
it we were all falling and falling and falling.

It was the most remarkable fall, and quite exciting, what with the snow flying around us
and cascading down on top of us. There was one extremely interesting moment when I thought
we were going to all be skewered on the dragonlances that Owen had been carrying and
hadn't had time to let go of before I grabbed him. But we weren't.

We hit bottom and the lances hit bottom and the snow that came down with us hit bottom. We
lay there a little bit, catching our breath. (I left mine up top somewhere.) Then Owen
picked himself up out of a snowbank and glared at Fizban.

“Are you all right?” he demanded gruffly.

“Nothing's broken, if that's what you mean,” Fizban said in a sort of quavery-type voice.
“But I seem to have lost my hat.”

Owen said something about consigning Fizban's hat to perdition and then he pulled me out
of a snowbank and stood me up on my feet and picked me up when I fell back down (my breath
not having made it this far yet) and he asked me if I was all right.

I said yes and wasn't that thrilling and did Fizban think there was the possibility we
could do that again. Owen said the really thrilling part was just about to begin because
how in the name of the Abyss were we going to get out of here?

Well, about that time I took a good look at where we were and we were in what appeared to
be a cave all made out of snow and ice and stuff. And the hole that we'd fallen through
was a long, long, long way up above us.

“And so are our packs and the rope and the food,” said Owen, staring up at the hole we'd
made and frowning.

“But we don't need to worry,” I said cheerfully. “Fizban's a very great and powerful
wizard and he'll just fly us all back up there in a jiffy. Won't you, Fizban?”

“Not without my hat,” he said stiffly. “I can't work magic without my hat.”

Owen muttered something that I won't repeat here as it isn't very complimentary to Fizban
and I'm sure Owen is ashamed now he said something like that. And he frowned and glowered,
but it soon became obvious that we couldn't get out of that hole without magic of some
sort.

I tried climbing up the sides of the cave walls, but I kept sliding back down and was
having a lot of fun, though not getting much accomplished, when Owen made me stop after a
whole great load of snow broke loose and fell on top of us. He said the whole mountain
might collapse.

There was nothing left to do but look for Fizban's hat.

Owen had dug the dragonlances out of the snow and he said the hat might be near where they
were. We looked, but it wasn't. And we dug all around where Fizban had fallen and the hat
wasn't there either.

Fizban was getting very unhappy and starting to blubber.

“I've had that hat since it was a pup,” he whimpered, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the
end of his beard. “Best hat in the whole world. Prefer a fedora, but they're not in for
wizards. Still - ”

I was about to ask who was Fedora and what did she have to do with his hat when Owen said
“Shush!” in the kind of voice that makes your blood go all tingly and your stomach do
funny things.

We shushed and stared at him.

“I heard something!” he said, only he said it without any voice, just his mouth moved.

I listened and then I heard something, too.

“Did you hear something?” asked a voice, only it wasn't any of our voices doing the
asking. It came from behind a wall of snow that made up one end of the cave.

I'd heard that kind of voice before - slithery and hissing and ugly. I knew right off what
it was, and I could tell from the expression on Owen's face - angry and loathing - that he
knew too.

“Draconian!” Owen whispered.

“It was only a snowfall,” answered another voice, and it boomed, deep and cold, so cold
that it sent tiny bits of ice prickling through my skin and into my blood and I shivered
from toe to topknot. “Avalanches are common in these mountains.”

“I thought I heard voices,” insisted the draconian. “On the other side of that wall. Maybe
it's the rest of my outfit.”

“Nonsense. I commanded them to wait up in the mountains until I come. They don't dare
disobey. They better not disobey, or I'll freeze them where they stand. You're nervous,
that's all. And I don't like dracos who are nervous. You make me nervous. And when I get
nervous I kill things.”

There came a great slithering and scraping sound and the whole mountain shook. Snow came
down on top of us again, but none of us moved or spoke. We just stared at each other. Each
of us could match up that sound with a picture in our minds and while my picture was
certainly very interesting, it wasn't conducive to long life. (Tanis told me once I should
try to look at things from the perspective of whether they were or were not conducive to
long life. If they weren't, I shouldn't hang around, no matter how interesting I thought
it might be. And this wasn't.)

“A dragon 1” whispered Owen Glendower, and he looked kind of awed.

“Not conducive to long life,” I advised him, in case he didn't know.

I guess he did, because he glared at me like he would like to put his hand over my mouth
but couldn't get close enough, so I put my own hand over my own mouth to save

him the trouble. “Probably a white dragon,” murmured Fizban, whose

eyes were about ready to roll out of his head. “Oh, my hat! My hat!” He wrung his hands.

Perhaps I should stop here and explain where we were in relation to the dragon. I'm not
certain, but I think we were probably in a small cave that was right next to an extremely
large cave where the dragon lived. A wall of snow separated us and I began to think that
it wasn't a very thick wall of snow. I mean, when one is trapped in a cave with a white
dragon, one would like a wall of snow to be about a zillion miles thick, and I had the
unfortunate feeling that this one wasn't.