with a little wind, I can get two notes at once- and I twisted it with my wrist as I spun it, and I must have caught the purse-string just as I twisted.'
'Ah. That must be it.'
'You can see how it would happen.' Moonwick spun the hoopak over his head and, incidentally, over the bar and nearly against the back wall. 'Because it's hard to see exactly where the 'pak-end moves when it twists-'
'I see that.' Otik deftly retrieved the tankard which had slipped, seemingly of its own will, over the end of the stick. 'Accidents will happen.'
'Of course.' Moonwick looked at him with insistent innocence. 'Because I would never, ever, ever simply steal a purse from someone.'
'Of course not.'
'Especially from this man. He was so nice, and so knowledgeable.' Moonwick leaned on his staff. 'We shared our lunches, and traded for variety, and he told the best stories. He'd swum to the bottom of Crystalmir Lake for stonefish, and picked plants from the edge of Darken Wood. He once climbed a dead tree by moonlight, and he told the funniest story about speaking to the ghost of the grandmother that never respected him. His name was Ralf. He was on his way to see his mother, he said.' The kender added thoughtfully, 'She must like jewelry; he had lots of little gifts for her, and he kept mixing up her name. Said he had a powder to feed Gwendol, then Genna, then Gerria-'
'A mage?' Otik was uneasy near magic.
'Oh, no.' Moonwick shook his head violently. 'Just a charm vendor: potions, powders, elixirs, amulets- nothing serious. Why, this is probably quite harmless.' He held the bag toward Otik. 'Probably the poor man will be here any day, looking for this. Would you take-'
'No'
'Just overnight; surely you're not-'
'No.'
'What possible harm could there be-'
'I have no idea what harm there could be,' Otik said firmly. 'I don't intend to find out. I keep away from magic.'
The kender looked pityingly. 'You miss a lot of ex citement that way.'
'Long ago I took a vow. I'm devoting my life to missing a lot of excitement.'
'All right, then.' Moonwick bounced the bag on his palm. 'I'll return it myself. Someday.'
'Good of you. In the meantime, I'm sorry you don't need a meal. Why don't you take-' With a quick wrist movement, Otik caught Moonwick's arm as it flashed across the bar-'a mug of ale, for your throat.'
'Good idea.' The kender grabbed a mug. 'Maybe I could stay here the night,' he said wistfully.
'No.' Otik sighed. 'I'm still replacing forks from the last time.'
Moonwick waved a hand. 'Surely you don't blame me Wasn't that a cry from the kitchen?'
It was. It sounded like a buried cook. Otik grunted. 'Pantry shelf's fallen again.' He trotted for the kitchen door, then whirled. 'Touch nothing without invitation while I'm gone.'
'Sound advice,' the kender murmured. As Otik disappeared through the door, the kender held his lips still.
The tap on the counter-keg said in a squeaky voice, 'Have a refill, Moonwick.'
'I will,' the kender said happily, 'and thank you for the invitation.' While he drank, for practice he made the buried-cook sound come from one of the packs at his side.
He stuck his hoopak straight out and spun it, balancing the purse on the end. When the drawstrings came undone he caught the purse neatly, then smelted it. 'What an odd odor.' He opened it and tilted it sideways. A pinch of powder like cinnamon drifted tothe floor. He made a face. 'It's a charm. Something terrible, too icky-sweet and spice-filled. It's not even labeled; it could be anything. How does Ralf expect people who find his purse by accident to know what to do with it?' He sighed. 'Magicians are so untrustworthy.'
Moonwick poked the purse itself. 'Nice bag, though.' He looked behind the bar for a place to empty out the useless dust, then saw the loose-lidded tun of alewort. He grinned, lifted the lid and emptied the contents of the pouch inside.
When Otik came back, he checked the bar carefully. Nothing seemed to be missing. He eyed Moonwick, who smiled innocently at him. 'Nice ale,' the kender said.
'It's my own recipe.' The innkeeper added, 'Thanks to your contribution, this batch will be even better.'
The kender choked. Otik stooped to pat his back, then retrieved an empty purse from the floor. 'What's this?'
'Mine.' The kender deftly plucked it from the innkeeper's hands. 'I hope to fill it someday.'
'Not in my inn.' Otik added, as the kender rose to leave, 'My thanks, Moonwick. Leave the door open, so the brew smell will air out. Come back next full moon, if you wish to taste what you carried.'
'Best I hurry on,' Moonwick said regretfully. Which was true-sooner or later Ralf might come looking for him. 'I do hope I can return to sample that batch.' He shook hands with Otik, who checked his ring after-ward.
Otik listened to the reassuring thump of the ken-der's departure down the stairs, and sighed. He said to himself, 'There's one source of trouble gone, and no harm done. Now to heat the alewort.' He walked to the back, looking for Tika.
While he was away, two fire swallows, a male and a female, flew in the open door and pecked at the fine spicy powder spilled from the purse. The two of them flew out in circles, squawking, billing, and frenziedly pressing against each other's bodies.
After pouring the hops in the tun, Otik cleaned the stream rounded heating stones and scrubbed the iron tongs he used on them. The whole Inn grew warm as he built up the fire and opened a wind-vent to blow the coals. The stones he laid on a flat clean slab of the hearth; as each stone heated he lowered it with the tongs into the wort. Soon he was sweating freely from the heat. He set the tongs down to wipe his forehead.
Without being asked, Tika picked them up, re moved several stones from the tun and swung heated ones in, lowering them gently to avoid splashing. Otik puffed and watched, proud of her. When he was younger, he would have needed no rest. For that matter, when Tika was younger, he would not have let her spell him at the heating.
As the tun began steaming, Otik thought again to himself, 'She's old enough for her own place.' He shook his head, cast the problem from his mind, and tried to think only of the new ale.
After the heating, Tika and Otik poured off the ale into smaller casks. Otik took care to fill each cask only four-fifths full, because the alewort bubbled as it worked, and a full cask could explode. Once, when Otik was young, he had overfilled one; it had taken weeks to get the smell out of the Inn.
Each cask they finished they rolled carefully against the tree and set upright where it would be in sunlight but away from outside walls. For the first seven days, the casks would be warm and working, and the yeast would be settling out of it. After that,they would move the casks, as gently as possible, into the store room with the stone floor, and give them until the next full moon to age in cool and quiet. If they had extra casks by then, and if they had the energy, Otik and Tika would pour the beer into freshlywashed containers for its final aging. Often, Otik cast about for ex cuses to avoid that stage; scrubbing twice for each batch, and repouring half-done beer, seemed an awful lot of work for a pleasant drink.
For now, though, the hard part of the brewing process was over, and it seemed to them both that the alewort already smelled delicious. Tika, her troubles forgotten, or at least submerged, sang another verse to 'The Song of Elen Waiting':
Will someone who knows
where all the time goes
come and lead me away by the hand,
I know day by day
I'm fading away;
it's more than my heart can stand.
It's not that he knew
more than any men do,
but he knew all my heart ever had;
