For a long time Keli did not know where he was. Sometimes he smelled the forest and the river, sometimes only dirt and rocks. Once the boy thought he heard thunder rumbling far, far away. Then, on the tenuous bridge between darkness and consciousness, he knew with the flashing certainty of lightning's strike that it was not thunder he was hearing.
It was the voice of nightmare: the voice of a goblin.
'Tigo, let's dump the little rat in the river. We have what we want.'
Keli expected to feel the goblin's huge gray hands drag him up and cast him into the river.
Far back in his mind he knew about the leather thongs pinioning his arms, binding him at knee and ankle. Too, he felt the hard earth, the fist-sized rock digging into his ribs. Pain, however, was not as immediate as death- fear.
A second voice, sounding like the rattling of old bones, growled, 'Bring him over here, Staag; see what he's carrying first.'
Someone shouted, then yelped. Keli's eyes flew open, his heart leaped hard against his ribs. He was not alone in his captivity!
Bruised, pinioned, and bound as Keli was, his fellow prisoner was in a worse plight, caught hard by the neck in the goblin's iron-fingered grip. He was small, but no child; the cant of his ears as well as his slim build and small stature marked him as a kender. Several pouches of varying sizes and materials bounced at the kender's belt each timeStaag shook him. And Staag, that slope-shouldered, gray skinned nightmare, shook him often and hard simply because it amused him to do so.
The kender, a game little fellow, hitched up his knees and drove them into the goblin's belly. Had a mouse attacked a mountain the result would have been the same. Laughing, Staag loosed his grip on the kender's neck and dropped him.
The kender writhed against his bonds. 'Swamp breathed, slime-brained bull,' he croaked.
Keli's heart sank. So much for the kender, he thought. Staag's going to kill him now!
But the goblin didn't. Tigo stopped him with a command.
If Staag, his arms too long, his legs too short, his skin the color of something a week dead, was the nightmare, his human companion Tigo was reality gone twisted. Tall and lean, bony-shouldered, with limbs that might have been stolen from a scarecrow, Tigo bore a four-pronged grapnel where his right hand should have been. His eyes, muddy and brown, held little sanity in them.
'I said bring him over here, Staag.' Tigo glanced at Keli, who shivered despite the close heat of the summer morning. 'And the boy, too.'
A bull, the kender had called the goblin, and bull-strong he was. He tossed the kender over one shoulder, Keli over the other and, with no thought, he dropped them next to Tigo.
Breathless, Keli lay still where he fell. The kender, his face in the dirt, snarled another insult.
'Let's just kill the kender and get it over with,' Staag grunted. 'We should have slit his throat at the tavern and got done with it.'
'Aye,' Tigo drawled. 'And left him bleeding all over the place for anyone to find. I don't think this one traveled alone.'
Staag snorted. 'Since when do these little vermin travel in company? Tigo, we waste time.' He peered up through the forest's brooding green canopy. 'It's almost noon and we're still too close to that village. Let's just kill him and the boy and get OUT of here!'
Keli clamped his teeth down on a whimper and prayed to every god his mother had told him was real.
'Be patient, you'll have your fun. But we're not going to kill the boy yet.' Tigo, his hands thief-light, slipped a finely tooled leather map case from the kender's shoulder. He laughed, a sound that reminded Keli of rusty hinges creaking. 'Nice collection of maps, kender.'
The kender hitched himself onto his back, spat dirt, and looked at Tigo with the expression of a guileless child. 'Used to clean middens for a living, did you? I can tell by the smell.'
Keli groaned again, hoping the kender's blood wouldn't splatter all over him. Yet, though he paled, Tigo didn't reply. Staag kicked the kender.
'Please, kender,' Keli breathed. 'Be quiet!'
Sometimes a bad dream, steeped in terror and warped perspective, turns funny. Keli felt he was in one of those odd turns now: the kender winked.
Before Keli could be certain he'd seen the wink, Tigo cuffed the kender hard.
'These maps! How recent, how dependable?'
With a speed that left Keli confused, the kender became the spirit of helpful affability. 'Some are very old — I've been collecting them for years, you know. It's kind of a hobby of mine. I like the drawings, especially the things the mappers sketch when they don't know who or what lives in the land. And I like the little legends and poems in the borders of the larger ones. That one, the one drawn on hide, is my oldest and the one I think I like the best. I got it in Schallsea; an old man gave it to me and he said — »
Tigo's hook-hand flashed silver in a shaft of sunlight, dancing threateningly before the kender's eyes.
'Right. Some of them are old, some are new. I guess it depends on where you want to go,' the kender added hastily.
'Away from here,' Staag growled, 'and fast.'
The kender did not give the goblin a glance, but spoke to Tigo. 'Then you're really lucky you brought me along. I've been all around these parts, many times, and I know them nearly as well as I know the inside of my own eyelids. That's why I don't have any maps of this area in the case. Who needs one? Not me. Where do you want to go?'
Tigo hissed a snake's warning. 'What makes you think we need a guide?'
'You said so.' The kender was all innocence now. Keli marveled at his composure. 'Not in so many words, of course, but I can tell. Otherwise why would you be so interested in my maps?'
'You make a large guess, kender.'
Keli thought so, too, but held his breath now, waiting.
The kender shrugged as best he could. 'Maybe I was wrong. But if you DID need a guide — and I'm not saying that you do — I'd be the one you'd need. As I said, I know — »
'Aye,' Staag snarled, 'all the lands about here.'
'That's right, I do. What do you think? Do you need a guide?' The kender lowered his voice in a confidential manner. 'If you want to kill someone, for example — »
Staag rumbled threateningly, loosed the dagger at his belt.
'Whoa! Wait! I'm not saying you do. I'm not saying you don't. But I can take you to a place I know where you can do whatever you need to do and no one will be the wiser.'
'In exchange for what?' Tigo asked.
The kender snorted. 'For my life!'
Keli's heart sank. Whatever that wink had been, it certainly hadn't been an expression of solidarity.
Tigo shook his head, baring his teeth in a deadly smile. 'What's your bond, kender? What will keep you from sneaking off in the middle of the night, leaving us with daggers in our backs?'
Staag laughed then, thunder and nightmare. Keli's stomach turned weakly. 'The same thing that keeps him here now, Tigo. Loose his feet so he can walk, but keep his hands tied and him on a short rein.'
Keli shifted away from the kender. This was no fellow prisoner now, but one in league with these two who, for some reason Keli could not figure out, wanted to kill him. He squeezed his eyes shut against a cold wash of despair and only partly heard the argument between Tigo and the goblin about whether the kender's pouches should be rifled now or later.
It hardly bore listening to anyway: Tigo argued that there was no time, and clearly Tigo was someone whom even the goblin feared. I'm not dead yet, the boy thought, but it's only a matter of time and place now. And I don't even know why!
Tanis had suspected all winter that the real purpose for Flint's journey this year was to attend Runne's wedding. Flint mentioned the occasion only once, when he and Tanis were mapping out the summer's trips, and then only told a brief tale of how the girl was the grandchild of Galan, the man who had been the old dwarf's first customer and who many, many years ago had become a friend.
