must say that I've traveled to a lot of different places, and every one of them was more interesting than this. Most of them a lot more interesting.'
The dwarf growled, shaking his head, sending cascades of water flinging from his bristling beard. His eyes, huge and pale by normal standards, glared balefully at his diminutive rescuer.
'Oh, you mean what, like in dwarf or human!' declared Emilo with an easy smile. 'I'm a kender. And pleased to make your acquaintance.'
Once again the stranger made a threatening gesture, thrusting a hand forward, palm perpendicular to the ground, fingers pointing toward the Theiwar's chest. This time Cantor was ready, and the knife came up, the black steel carving a swooshing arc through the air.
'Hey! You almost cut me!' cried the kender, whipping his fingers out of the path of the assault. 'Haven't you ever shaken hands before?'
'Keep your hands away from me.' Cantor's voice was a low growl, barely articulate, but apparently impressive enough to deter the menacing kender, who took a half step backward and cleverly regarded the dwarf behind a mask of hurt feelings and morose self-pity.
'Maybe I should keep all of me away from you,' sniffed the long-haired traveler. 'I'm beginning to think it was even a mistake to give you my water. Though I guess you would have died here if I hadn't. And anyway, I can always get more.' Here the kender shivered slightly, looking nervously over his shoulder. 'But I guess I'll have to go back to those caves to find it again.'
'Caves?' One word from the kender's ramblings penetrated the Theiwar dwarf's lunatic mind. 'There's a cave? Where?' Cantor tried to scramble to his feet, but his legs collapsed and he fell to his knees. He reached forward to seize the kender, but the little fellow skipped back, causing the dwarf's hands to clasp together in an imploring posture.
'Why, over there. In the big mountain that looks like a skull. The one they call Skullcap.'
'Take me there!' Cantor screamed, lunging forward. The promise of darkness, of shade from the merciless sun, was a more enticing prospect even than the thought of more water.
'I'm not sure I want to go anywhere with you,' declared the kender, his narrow chin set in a firm line. 'Didn't you just try to kill me? And after I saved your life, to boot. No, I don't think-'
'Please!' the Theiwar croaked the unfamiliar word, a reflex action that achieved its purpose: For the time being, the kender stopped talking about leaving the wretched dwarf here in the middle of the plain.
For his own part, Cantor Blacksword tried to force his newly revitalized mind through some mental exercise. This was a foreign creature, more dangerous by far than the hated Hylar and Daewar of the other mountain dwarf clans. Every enraged fiber of his being, every treacherous and double-dealing experience from his past, told the Theiwar that this kender was a threat, an enemy to be defeated, one whose valuables rightfully belonged to the one who killed him.
Yet right now the greatest of those valuables was knowledge, an awareness of a place where a cave, and water, could be found. And despite the dark dwarf clan's propensity for torture, for theft and illicit acquisition, no Theiwar had ever figured out a way to pry knowledge from a corpse.
And so, for now, the kender would need to stay alive. That settled, the dwarf tried to focus on the current of prattle that seemed to issue from the kender's mouth at such an impossibly high speed.
'It was awfully nice meeting you and all, I'm sure,' Emilo Haversack was saying. 'But now I really must be going. Important wandering to do, you understand… have to see the coast, as a matter of fact. Do you know which way the ocean-oh, never mind! Actually, I'm sure I can find it myself.'
Cantor croaked a response that he hoped was friendly.
'Anyway, I can see that you have matters of your own to keep you busy. As I said, it really has been pleasant, at least by the standards of a chance meeting during the dark of night in the middle of a desert…'
'Wait!' The Theiwar articulated the word with a great effort of will. 'I–I'd like to talk to you some more. Won't you join me here in my camp?'
He gestured to the featureless, cracked ground around him. It was the place in this gods-forsaken wasteland where he had collapsed, nothing more, and yet the kender beamed as if he had been invited into a grand palace.
'Well, I don't mind if I do, really. It has been a long walk…' Emilo shivered suddenly, looking over his shoulder again, and the dwarf wondered what could make this clearly seasoned wanderer so nervous. 'And I could use some company myself.'
The kender crossed his legs in a fashion no dwarf could hope to mimic as he squatted easily on the ground.
'I hope you're feeling a little better after the water. You know, you really should carry some with you. After all, a person can die of thirst out here.'
'I wanted to-' Cantor started to speak in his habitual snarl, to tell this kender that he had desired nothing but death.
Yet now, with the wetness of water soothing his throat and the knowledge that there was a cave somewhere, perhaps not terribly far away, the Theiwar admitted to himself that he did not want to perish here. He wanted to survive, to go on living, even if not for any particular reason that he could name at the tune.
'That is, I wanted to bring enough water to drink, but the desert was bigger than I thought it was,' he concluded lamely, looking sidelong at the kender to see if he would swallow the lie.
'I see,' Emilo Haversack said, nodding seriously. 'Well, would you like a little hardtack?' He offered a strip of leathery meat, and the dwarf gratefully took the provision, chewing on the tough membrane, relishing the feel of saliva once again wetting his mouth.
'I meant to ask you,' the kender continued, speaking around a tough mouthful of the jerky, 'why doesn't your sword have a blade?'
Cantor gaped in astonishment, which quickly exploded to rage as he saw the kender examining the broken weapon. 'How did you get that?' the dwarf demanded, making a clumsy lunge that Emilo easily evaded.
'I was just looking at it,' he declared nonchalantly, allowing Cantor to snatch the weapon back.
Suspiciously the dwarf patted his pouch, finding flint and tinder where it was supposed to be. As he did, he remembered some of things he had heard about kender, and he resolved to be careful of his possessions.
'If you feel well enough, perhaps we should get going,' Emilo suggested. 'I've found that it's best to do my walking at night, at least here in the desert. If you want to come with me, I think we can get back to Skullcap-er, the caves-before sunrise.'
Once again the dwarf heard that tremor in the kender's voice, but he took no note. The promise of a cave over his head before cruel dawn! The very notion sent a shiver of bliss through the dark-loving Theiwar, and he pushed himself to his feet with a minimum of pain and stiffness. Again he felt alive, ready to move, to fight, to do whatever he had to do to claim the part of the world that was rightfully his.
'Let's go,' he said, making the unfamiliar effort to make his voice sound friendly. 'Why don't you show me where those caves are?'
CHAPTER 7
251 AC
Third Adamachtis, Dry-Anvil
'There-didn't I tell you that it looked like a skull?' asked Emilo Haversack. 'And doesn't it make you wonder how it got to be this way?'
Gantor leaned back, allowing his pale, luminous eyes to trace upward across the pocked face of the mountain, past the eye sockets and mouth that gaped as vast, dark caves. The visage did indeed look ghastly, and so realistic that it might have been the work of some giant demented sculptor.
'It might,' the Theiwar said agreeably, 'except I've heard a lot about this place, and I know how it was
