residents had seemed to have grown used to him by now, and much of the staring had ended-or at least had given place to occasional muttered comments, never uttered loudly enough for Tanis or Flint to actually confront the speaker. Still, it had been a hard time for Tanis. Humans matured so much faster than elves and dwarves that Tanis seemed, to his elven kindred, to have changed overnight.
'Shouldn't you be doing something now?' Flint said testily, making sure to keep himself between Tanis and the concealed sword.
'Like what?' Tanis asked. He seemed to sense that something was up with the dwarf.
'Like doing whatever it is that you do around here,' Flint finished grumpily. 'I'm too… too ill to entertain you today, lad. I need my rest.' He peeked out of the corner of one blue eye to see if the half-elf was buying this.
Tanis shook his head. So Flint was in one of those moods.
'All right, Flint. I was going to suggest we go off on a bit of an adventure'-Flint's eyes went wide, and a sudden sneeze burst violently from him-'but I guess it can wait until another day.' The half-elf scratched absently at his chin.
'Better take a razor to that thing again,' Flint said, 'or let it grow. One or the other unless you want to look like a highwayman.'
Tanis looked startled, and he ran a hand across his cheek, feeling the stubble of a few days' growth of beard. A gift from his human father-or a curse, however you wanted to look at it, Tanis supposed. It had become noticeable a year or so ago, and Tanis still hadn't gotten used to it. He'd have to take the razor, the one Flint had fashioned for him, to it again.
'Why you'd want to shave a perfectly good beard in the first place, I wouldn't know,' Flint complained.
Tanis shook his head absently. Let it grow? He couldn't do that. Flint saw this, and so let it go.
'All right, Flint, I'll leave you to your grumbling,' Tanis said. 'I really came by to deliver you a message. There's going to be some sort of announcement at court tomorrow afternoon, and the Speaker asked me to invite you.'
'Announcement?' Flint said, drawing his bushy eyebrows together. 'About what?'
Tanis shrugged again. 'I have no idea. The Speaker's been closeted with Lord Xenoth and Tyresian for a day. I suppose you'll find out when I do.' With a smile, the half-elf left the shop. The small chime sounded on the air again. Flint waited a long moment, just to be sure Tanis wasn't coming back, and then he uncovered the sword, rubbing his hands together. Ah, yes! It would be a wonderful sword.'
Soon, the rhythmic music of his hammer could be heard again on the warm spring air.
Flint's shop was destined to receive a few more guests that day. The sound of Tanis's footsteps on the tile streets had no sooner receded than the chime sounded again. Flint flung the cloth across the sword once more and hastily stood before the weapon.
But it wasn't Tanis. It was an old woman, aged even for an elf-but Flint thought he saw a hint of human blood there, too. She was short and wiry, dressed in an eccentric fashion for an elf; elves tended to prefer flowing garments, but the old one wore a loose green top of some open weave and a gathered wool skirt that reached nearly to the ground, making her appear even shorter than she was. In fact, she was nearly eye to eye with the dwarf, a situation he had never experienced with an adult elf. The eyes that peered from the triangular face, however, were round and hazel-another hint at some human forebear. Flint would warrant that the human blood had come into her family line centuries before the Cataclysm. The wideness of her face across her eyes, combined with the narrowness of her chin, gave the old woman a catlike appearance. Unlike other elves, she wore her silver hair in a braid and a bun, exposing the ears that reflected her elven heritage. Her fingers were so long and slender that they appeared out of proportion to the rest of her body. Like Tanis, she wore moccasins; these were embroidered in deep purple beading, matching her skirt. Over all, she wore a lightweight hooded cloak of mottled lilac and pale green.
Attached to her skirt was a toddler, who looked up at the wrinkle-faced woman with an expression akin to adoration. The little boy-who hadn't been walking for many months, judging from his death grip on the woolen skirt-smiled milkily at Flint.
'Flink!' the youngster said, and dared loosen one hand's grip enough to point at the dwarf and smile at the old woman. 'Flink!'
'Flink?' the dwarf repeated, stooping to look the child full in the face. Flint's brows shot up near his hairline. 'I don't remember you from the Hall of the Sky-Oh, yes I do! Last autumn. You weren't walking yet. You were with your big brother. I gave you-What was it?'
The youngster shoved a hand into a pocket in his loose, teal-green coverall, and brought out a thumb-size chip of rose quartz, a fuzzy piece of
'You made that?' she asked in an alto that sounded like the tone of an elf several centuries younger. She reached out one slim finger and poked the bird.
The robin was fatter on the bottom than on top, and was rounded along its lower edge so that the toy, when bumped, rolled to the side, then bobbed back up again. Flint had fashioned the simple toy out of two pieces of wood, fastening a heavy chunk of iron near the bottom, between the two pieces, so that the bird could not be knocked over.
Flint nudged it a few more times, entranced as ever with its bobbing, until he realized that the hazel-eyed woman was waiting for an answer and the little boy was lunging for the toy. The dwarf handed the bird back to the youngster and nodded to the woman.
'You are Flint Fireforge,' she stated. It wasn't a question.
Flint nodded again.
'I would like to buy some toys from you,' she said abruptly.
'Well,' Flint said, drawing it out, 'that could be a problem.'
'Why?' she demanded.
The dwarf turned and leaned one haunch against the oaken table. He rested one hand on his knee and looked past her toward the oaken hutch. 'First of all, I don't sell toys. I give them away. Second, I never sell to strangers.'
Her sharp features fell into an offended mien, and she turned so fast that the toddler practically swung off his feet. 'Well, I guess that's that, then, Master Fireforge,' she said, and reached to open the door.
Flint took a deep breath of the shop's metallic air, then spoke just as the woman's hand grasped the door handle. 'Of course, if you would bother to introduce yourself, you wouldn't be a stranger,' he said mildly, examining the nails on his left hand and using a sliver of iron to clean out the forge dirt he found encrusted there.
The woman stopped, her back to Flint; she appeared to be thinking. Then she swiveled, eyes snapping. 'Ailea,' she said brusquely. 'Eld Ailea to those who know me well.' 'Eld' meant 'aunt' in the elven tongue.
Flint inclined his head. 'And I am Flint Fireforge.'
'I know th-' she started to say, then sighed and waited.
'And,' he continued as though she hadn't spoken, 'while I wouldn't sell toys to a stranger, I might be inclined to give some to a
She sighed again, but a faint smile found its way onto her thin lips. She resembled an Abanasinian cat, offered some prize it had long coveted. But her words showed only exasperation. 'I'd heard you could be like this. Master Fire-forge,' she commented.
Flint swiftly crossed before her and opened the hutch to display the dozens of toys he had brought with him from a winter's worth of carving in Solace. Some had not survived being jounced on the back of a tylor-panicked mule, but most were in fine condition. He gazed at the contents of the hutch, selected a whistle that was too big for the toddler to swallow, and handed it to the little boy, who blew such a ferocious blast on it that the dwarf immediately wished he'd chosen something else. Flint's thick hands continued to move over the toys, plucking out one here, one there, until more than a dozen rested in the front pockets of his loose leather tunic.
Minutes later, the toddler was seated happily on the end of Flint's cot, arranging lines of carved animals on the dwarf's clothes chest and intermittently tooting the whistle. Flint waited for an iron kettle of water to come to a boil on a hook over the forge's fire, and Eld Ailea measured into a tea strainer a tantalizing mixture of dried orange peel, cinnamon pieces, and black tea. She paused to sniff the potpourri. 'Wonderful,' she said in a low voice, and
