'But, if my Lord Crownguard left with the dragon orb, what are you two doing here?' he asked, after he'd stared at us longer than was really polite. 'Why did you stay behind?'
'We're under an enchantment,' I said. 'Isn't it exciting? Well, to be honest, not all that exciting. Actually it's been pretty boring, not to mention cold and icky and damp. The Dark Queen has put us under a spell, you see. And we can't get out of here because every time we leave we keep coming back. And we have to get out of here because we're on a Very Important Mission to… to… '
I stopped because I wasn't quite sure what our Important Mission was.
'Lord Gunthar. Important mission to Lord Gunthar,' said Fizban. 'Must see him right away. Most urgent.'
'You're under black enchantment?' Owen pulled back from us both, raised his sword, and laid his hand on Huma's bier.
'Well, now. As to the enchantment part.' Fizban scratched his head. 'It could be that I exagger — '
'Oh, yes!' I averred. (I'm fond of that word, averred.) 'The Dark Queen is most dreadfully afraid of Fizban, here. He's a great and powerful wizard.'
Fizban blushed and took off his hat and twirled it around in his hands. 'I do my best,' he said modestly.
'Why did you send for me?' Owen asked, and he still seemed suspicious.
Fizban appeared somewhat at a loss. 'Well, I… you see… that is…'
'I know! I know!' I cried, standing on my tiptoes and raising my hand in the air. Of course, anyone who's ever been a child knows the reason, but maybe knights were never children or maybe he didn't have a mother to tell him stories like my mother told me. 'Only a true knight can break our enchantment!'
Fizban breathed a deep sigh. Taking off his hat, he mopped his forehead with his sleeve. 'Yes, that's it. True knight. Rescue damsels in distress.'
'We're not damsels,' I said, thinking I should be truthful about all this, 'but we are in considerable distress, so I should think that would count. Don't you?'
Owen stood beside Huma's bier, eyeing us, and he still seemed confused and suspicious — probably because we weren't damsels. I mean, I could see how that would be disappointing, but it wasn't our fault.
'And there's these dragonlances,' I said, waving my hand at them, where we'd dropped them, on the floor at the back of the temple. 'Only they don't — '
'Dragonlances!' Owen breathed, and suddenly, it was like Solinari had dropped right down out of the sky and burst on top of the knight. His armor was bright, bright silver and he was so handsome and strong-looking that I could only stare at him in wonder. 'You have found the dragonlances!'
He thrust his sword in its sheath and hurried over to where I'd pointed. At the sight of the two lances, lying on the floor in the moonlight, Owen cried out loudly in words I didn't understand and fell down on his knees.
Then he said, in words I could understand, 'Praise be to Paladine, These are dragonlances, true ones, such as Huma used to fight the Dark Queen. I saw the images, carved on the outside of the Temple.'
He rose to his feet and came to stand before us. 'Now I know that you speak the truth. You plan to take these lances to Lord Gunthar, don't you, Sir Wizard? And the Dark Queen has laid an enchantment on you to prevent it.'
Fizban swelled up with pride at being called Sir Wizard and I saw him look at me to make certain I noticed, which I did. I was very happy for him because generally he gets called other things that aren't so polite.
'Why, uh, yes,' he said, puffing and preening and smoothing his beard. 'Yes, that's the ticket. Take the lances to Lord Gunthar. We should set out right AWAY' 'But the lances don't — ' I began. ' — shine,' said Fizban. 'Lances don't shine.' Well, before I could mention that the lances not only didn't shine but didn't work either, Fizban had upended one of my pouches, causing my most precious and valuable possessions in the whole world to spill out all over the floor. By the time I had everything picked up and resorted and examined and wondered where I'd come by a few things that I didn't recognize, Fizban and Owen were ready to leave.
Owen Glendower was holding the lances in his hand — did I mention that he was very strong? I mean, it took Fizban and me both to carry them, and here this knight was holding two of them without any trouble at all.
I asked Fizban about this but he said it was reverence and thankfulness that gave the knight unusual strength.
'Reverence and thankfulness. But we'll see about that as we go along,' muttered Fizban, and I thought he looked cunning again.
Owen Glendower said good-bye to Huma and was very unhappy over leaving the Tomb.
'Don't worry,' I told him. 'If you haven't broken the enchantment, we'll be back.'
'Oh, he's broken it, all right,' said Fizban, and we all trooped out the door and into the moonlight.
And then I realized that it WAS moonlight. (I told you I'd tell you all this when it came its proper turn in the story, and this is it.) The fog was gone and we could see the Guardians and the Bridge of Passage and behind us the Silver Dragon Mountain. And Owen was so fascinated that we almost couldn't drag him off. But Fizban reminded him that the dragonlances were the 'salvation of the people' and this got the knight moving.
He'd had a horse, but somehow or other he'd lost it. He said that when we reached civilized lands we'd find other horses to ride and that would get us to Lord Gunthar's faster.
I considered telling him that Fizban could get us all to Lord Gunthar's much, much faster, if he wanted to cast one of his spells on us. Then I thought that with Fizban's spells, all things considered (especially my eyebrows), we might end up in the middle of the Hot Springs. And maybe Fizban thought the same thing because he didn't mention his spells either. So we set off, with Owen Glendower carrying the dragonlances and me carrying my pouches and Fizban carrying a tune, sort of.
And, praise be to any and all of the gods, we did NOT go back to Huma's Tomb!
CHAPTER SIX
Let me point out right here and now that it wasn't my fault we ended up in the Wasted Lands. I had a map and I told Fizban and Sir Owen we were heading the wrong direction. (It was a perfectly good map: if Tarsis By the Sea chose to get itself landlocked, I don't see how anyone can blame me for it!)
It was night. We were wandering around in the mountains when we came to a pass. I told Fizban that we should go left. That would lead us out of the mountains and take us to Sancrist. But Fizban scoffed and said my map was outdated (outdated!) and Owen Glendower vowed he'd shave his moustaches before he ever took advice from a kender. (Which seemed a fairly safe vow to me, considering that he didn't have all that much yet to shave.) This after he'd admitted that he'd gotten himself all turned around in Foghaven Vale and wasn't real sure where he was now!
He said that we should wait until morning and that when the sun came up we'd know what direction to take, but Fizban said he had a feeling in his bones that the sun wouldn't come up in the morning, and, by gosh, he was right. The sun didn't come up or if it did we missed it what with the snow and all.
So we turned right when we should have turned left and came to the Wasted Lands and the adventure, but this isn't the adventure's proper place in the story yet, so it'll have to wait its turn.
I could tell you about the days we spent traveling through the mountains in the snow but, to be honest, that part wasn't very exciting… if you don't count Fizban accidentally melting our snow shelter down around us one night while he was trying to read his spell book by the light of a magical candle that turned out to be more magic than candle. (I got to keep the wick)
One nice thing about that time was traveling with Owen Glendower. I was getting to like the knight a lot. He said he didn't even mind being around me much (which may not sound very gracious to you but is a lot more than I expected).
'Probably,' he said, 'because I don't have many valuables to lose.'
I didn't quite understand that last part, especially since he kept losing what he said was his most treasured possession: a very beautiful little painting of his wife and son that he carried in a small leather pouch over his left breast underneath his armor.
He discovered it missing one night when we were relaxing in our snow shelter (the one Fizban melted) and we all hunted for the painting most diligently. It was right when Owen said he was going to turn me upside down
