Bunniswot reddened and coughed. 'Ah, that,' he said, gulping. 'You know, I'm glad to have this time alone with you, so we can sort this out.'
'It took me a quote or two to make the connection,' said Toede with a smile. 'Thaf s what all this lily- dancing and trusting trysts is all about, isn't it? The ogre pornography.'
'Well, yes and no,' said Bunniswot. 'And it's ur-ogre, and erotica.'
'What does 'yes and no' mean?' said Toede.
Bunniswot spelled it out. 'After Renders disappeared and the gnolls were defeated, I had trouble getting my… er, findings, published. There was neither funding nor support, and frankly, the material did have a… risque… nature to it.'
'So…?'
'So I had it published myself,' said Bunniswot. 'Initial release of twenty handwritten copies. Second release of a hundred. Working on a third now.'
'I know there's something coming that I won't like,' said Toede, reducing his eyes to slits. 'Why not tell me now and get it over with?'
'I didn't publish it as historical documentation. No one in academia would take something like this seriously.' Bunniswot smiled weakly.
'And instead…?' continued Toede. Bunniswot looked at the floor, speaking very fast. 'I said it was the political and scholarly advice of one of the most misunderstood warrior-leaders of our time. The not-so-late Highmaster Toede.' 'What?'
'It's gotten very good reviews,' put the scholar in quickly. 'The Tower of High Sorcery alone has asked for three copies. We're talking about reprinting it for the libraries of Sancrist.'
'You signed my name to your ogre pornography?' hissed Toede, keeping his volume down as best he could. 'Well, I didn't call it pornography,' replied Bunniswot with a 'what-kind-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for' tone to his voice.
Toede felt his face grow red. 'What. Did. You. Call. It?' He bit off each word.
'Political and social allegory, concentrating on both the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and the relationships between rulers and other rulers,' said Bunniswot.
'So all the talk about sex is…?' Toede felt a mounting pressure building behind his eyes.
'Not about sex at all,' Bunniswot said, nodding, 'unless you have a filthy mind. And since no one admits to having a filthy mind, it's okay.'
'Wonderful,' muttered Toede. 'And I take it our kender poetess has read the book.'
'She can quote it chapter and verse,' said Bunniswot.
'If s the text book for the Allied Rebellion.'
Toede did not know if he was supposed to laugh or ay. 'So I'm credited with a book I didn't write, that is about sex although it isn't, and that is being used by a rebellion that has yet to rebel?'
Bunniswot tilted his head slightly, as if considering Toede's argument. 'Good summary,' he said at length.
Toede pressed his hands to his temples. 'Just bloody wonderful. Okay, what else can go wrong?'
'We're back!' said Taywin, bouncing into the hut.
She was followed by a large, angry-looking human dressed in black. Toede's eyes widened. His shirt was open to reveal a large T that had been carved into his chest.
The assassin from the Jetties towered over Toede. Even hunched over, his shoulders grazed the ceiling of the hut. The assassin's eyes glowed like hot embers with barely contained emotion. At his hip was a great sword in a rune-carved scabbard.
Toede felt his throat go dry, his tongue turn to sandpaper. Toede choked out, 'Dance on the lilies, warrior.'
The assassin let out a great cry, and Toede backed up. As it was, he was pressed flat against the wall of the hut when the human drew his sword and collapsed to his knees, presenting it, hilt-first, to the hobgoblin.
'My life is yours, O sage leader!' said the warrior, his eyes focused on Toede's toes.
Toede pried himself from the side of the wall with as much decorum as he could muster. He took the sword (the same one, he noted, that had previously been used in combat against Groag) from the warrior's hands, and strongly considered ramming it right back into the human's T-inscribed chest. However, as this might lead to further complications with the kender, (particularly the guard with the club), he instead gently touched the warrior with it on the shoulder, his mind scrambling for something suitable to say for the occasion.
'Your life is yours to live,' mumbled Toede. 'Arise, good Sir… In all the previous excitement I never learned your name?'
'Rogate, most sage leader,' muttered the warrior, eyes bent to the floor.
'Arise, Sir Rogate,' said Toede. 'You have pledged your quest with my own.' Whatever the heck that might be, he added to himself.
Rogate tottered to his feet, swaying slightly, and declaimed to the others, 'I serve the mighty Toede, and have been accepted and forgiven! Behold, the first of the Toedaic Knights!'
Bunniswot and Taywin applauded politely. Miles, the kender guard, grimaced and left to return to his post.
'Now, if everyone will please sit down,' said Toede. 'Perhaps someone would like to tell me exactly what is going on.'
Rogate drew himself up to his full height, or at least as much height as the hut permitted. 'But you know all, most puissant and sage of wonders!'
Toede motioned for Rogate to sit, saying softly, 'I come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh.' He made a mental note to get a few more quotes under his belt.
Rogate's face brightened, then he quietly sat down. 'Perhaps, then, it is best that I begin, my wondrous leader, for I have been in Flotsam for most of the past year, and have seen what has transpired.'
Toede nodded. Rogate continued, 'I awoke in the Jetties with my wounds healed, the innkeep declaring that you had considered taking my life, but spared me instead. In that moment I realized your true mercy and felt ashamed.
'I did not return to my post that night, or ever again. I know now that I was a dupe of the false creatures known as the Water Prophet and Gildentongue. When Gilden-tongue's dining habits were revealed to the masses I was angered, but more concerned when it turned out that Hopsloth's own priests chose to rule in the same.highhanded fashion.
'I sought out one who I believed would tell me what had happened to you, and found that unworthy creature, Groag.' Rogate looked as though he was about to spit. 'He helped me not, and soon afterward he left the city himself, to further his own ambitions.'
Toede slid a look in Bunniswot's direction, but the scholar declined to mention his tenure of eating Groag's cooking. Instead, he stared blankly out the hut door.
Rogate continued. 'I knew that retribution most divine was upon us, and began to preach, to warn others of your next return. The priests of Hopsloth crushed all dissent, and many early martyrs disappeared without trace.' Rogate lowered his eyes in silence.
'I was correct, and you did return, on the back of a great metal elephant that spoke in a mathematical tongue!
'You were magnificent, my sage leader!' beamed Rogate.
'You cut down the followers and guards of Hopsloth right and left, charged his fortress-lair, and dispatched him forthwith. Some say you died in the struggle, but I believed that you passed only after you had removed that foul stench from our land. It was then I founded my simple Faith-of-Toede-Returned.
'And yet,' added Rogate quickly, 'the foulness reappeared. In the turmoil following your triumph against Hopsloth, a dark being returned to Flotsam, the obscenity known as Groag.'
Another silence hung in the air for a brief ice age. Toede prompted, 'And then…?' But the newly christened Toedaic Knight sat, shaking his head.
'It seems that Groag captured Rogate's audience,'
Bunniswot put in.
