Kronin made another suggestive toast involving blossom petals and honey, and sat back down. Toede took a pull from his cup and enjoyed the pleasant cranberry wine, very potent.
'You're going to quote me all night?' chided Toede.
'Your words are honest and brave,' said Kronin, 'unlike the public facade you presented to the world. My daughter has always been sympathetic to you, but I fear I could not see behind the mean-spirited boot-spittle lackey image you showed to the outside world. I mean, is it true you once went drinking with Raistlin, and that he was almost left behind by the Companions as a result?'
As the evening continued in a similar vein, Kronin's tongue became looser, his prose more direct and explicit, particularly as to how the new Toede was far superior to that gutless, inbred, despotic little excuse for a sliver-of- worm-larva that he had been when he was in charge of Flotsam. All of these insults were delivered with a glib smile, and an assurance that the kender leader knew that Toede was much better now.
Kronin's opinion of Groag was even worse, but only in the matter of degree. At one point the kender was saying how Groag was more Toedelike than Toede had ever been, when the elderly kender's conversation took a turn, and he mentioned the loss of his daughter's lovely locks. It was an off-hand reference to Groag's senseless cruelty, but it halted Kronin in his conversational tracks. The old kender grew quiet, and Toede could almost hear his old kender heart breaking.
Then the moment passed, and Kronin resumed his detailed comparison of Toede and Groag. Toede felt his blood pressure climbing. The worst thing that could happen, thought the hobgoblin as the kender nattered on, would be for him to die again. At the hands of kender it would take a while, because they wouldn't know how to proceed properly and would probably talk him to death.
Five more toasts and an hour of comparative comments later, Toede's head was aching, both from the conversation and the wine. Kronin interrupted his fourth analysis of Toede's first death to stagger to his feet and gesture to the increasingly rambunctious crowd. 'You have heard many toasts this evening,' he slurred, 'all from the mind of this incredible individual known as Toede.' There was drunken and thunderous applause at this point, with the by-now-woozy Toede convinced they had forgotten who they were cheering for. The inner rage at pompous Kronin, foolish Taywin, the kender rabble, their stupid songs and their excessive eating habits, had pushed him to the boiling point. It wouldn't take much more to push him over the edge.
'But I do not want to be the only one speaking,' Kronin continued, 'so I grant the floor to my daughter, Taywin.'
Oh, no, thought Toede.
Kronin went on, oblivious. 'Taywin will be reading a litany of her best poems…'
'That does it,' muttered Toede, as he leaned down to grab the knife out his boot, and then jam it between Kro-* run's ribs. Then a quick escape into the darkness and freedom.
There was a prickly feeling that passed over Toede's neck when he bent forward, and then, when he looked up, dagger in hand, he saw to his astonishment that there was already a dagger sticking in Kronin's side. The kender elder looked in confusion at the blood fountaining out of his right side, mouthed something incomprehensible, and collapsed onto his daughter.
Toede looked at the unused dagger in his own hand, at the implement jutting out of the kender, and back to the dagger again, as if unable to believe that there were multiple poetry-haters at the moot.
Then Miles gave a shout. 'The hobgoblin's stabbed Kronin! Get him!'
Toede felt the entire weight of two-hundred-plus eyes fix on him simultaneously, backed up by two-hundred- plus hands, all armed with knives, forks, and other instruments of potential personal damage.
Toede rose halfway, looked out at the angry faces, and seemed about to speak. Then he wheeled, cut a long,
savage rip in the screen behind the main table, and bolted, leaving the charging kender behind, and Taywin screaming for order.
Kronin's assassin moved as silently as possible toward the river bank. He had to make a large loop to avoid the mass of confusion, for an impromptu posse of impassioned and drunken kender had charged in various directions after the incident-to the village and Toede's hut, to the river, to the old campsite. Bands of kender in fours and fives went tumbling in all directions in the dark, intent on fetching the hounds and catching the traitorous criminal.
Twice now, packs of dazed kender had boiled past him, completely unaware that the true murderer was in their sights and providing erroneous information to them.
The assassin smiled as he slipped quietly between the large boles, down to the embankment and toward the lone maple bridge across the stream. The water glowed white in the moonlight.
He was at the near end of the bridge when a small shadow detached itself from a tree about fifteen feet away. The hobgoblin-shaped shadow strode forward into the moonlight, as the assassin stopped dead in his tracks.
'Hello, Miles,' said Toede, tapping his dagger against his nails.
'Toede,' lisped the kender guard. 'Thought I'd find you here.'
'No, you didn't,' smiled Toede. 'You thought nothing of the kind. You thought this was the easiest way to escape. I know because I had the same route planned.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' sputtered the kender.
'You threw the dagger that hit Kronin.'
'You don't know that!' said the kender. 'You were looking elsewhere, leaning under the table.'
'You would notice that,' said Toede. 'Then you must know that I could not have done the deed. Yet you were the first to shout for my head. It was you, Rogate, Bunni-swot, Kronin, and I on that side of table. If it had been Rogate, you would have seen it clearly, and maybe even have stopped him. Bunniswot is a scholar who can't even handle a butter knife without causing himself grievous injury. I was leaning forward, you said so yourself. So the only one who could have done it was…'
'I didn't mean to hit him,' spat the kender.
'No, you meant to hit me,' finished the hobgoblin. 'But I leaned forward, so you missed and struck Taywin's father.'
There was a silence. Finally the kender guard said, 'You can't take me back, you know.' ' 'I can't?' said Toede.
'Look. You take me back, and as soon as I get within shouting range, I shout that I've spotted you.' Miles chose his words carefully. 'There are a hundred crazed kender out there, all of them after your hide. You may know the truth, but by the time anyone listens, you will be garot-ted.'
'I've been dead before,' shrugged Toede.
'And you really want to be dead again?' said Miles. When the hobgoblin didn't respond, the kender said, 'I'm going now. Best of luck on your own escape.' He started across the slippery pole, his footing sure and even.
'Miles?' came Toede's shout behind him. Halfway across the pole, the kender turned, looking over his shoulder at the hobgoblin.
'Yes, Toede?' he said.
'Why?'
Miles turned on the narrow bridge. He spread his hands out to explain that if Toede was supposed to be a martyr, he should be a dead martyr, for he knew about all the lies and half-truths that Bunniswot and Rogate and even Taywin told. He wanted to prove Toede an unworthy being to follow, and the best thing for the hobgoblin was to die under the kender swords.
Miles intended to say all that, really. But as he spread his hands, he felt a harsh, sharp thump in his chest, and looked down to see the hilt of Toede's dagger protruding from his shirt, just to the left of his sternum.
Then he felt the cold rush of the waters hit, and then nothing more at all.
'Dance upon the water lilies, Miles,' said Toede. 'Dance upon the lilies.'
It was about a half hour later when Bunniswot found Toede, still at the bridge, listening to the thunder of the rapids.
Toede started for a moment, then nodded as Bunniswot sat down next to him.
'How bad is it?' said the hobgoblin.
'Not as bad as it seemed,' said the scholar. 'It became apparent soon after the attack that you were not responsible, and would have been realized sooner if Rogate had not gotten into a wrestling match with a dozen
