Late the next afternoon, however, he found his prize: an odd piece of smooth, pinkish stone with a rounded knob at one end, tapering to a flat oval at the other. No bigger than a small skipping stone, it seemed to glow from within as it lay frozen in the crevasse wall, suffusing a rosy hue to the ice-blue of the fresh chasm. An hour later, his fingers numb from digging at the frozen wall with his dagger, Finderkeeper held the object in his hands. His fingers warmed from its mere touch. This must be magic. Given the age of the other relics that had been found here, Finderkeeper Rum-plton was sure that this was lost Irda magic.
He couldn’t contain himself. Faster than a shopkeeper blocks the entrance to his store at the sight of an approaching kender, Finderkeeper leaped up from his mining crevasse and hollered, “I found Irda magic!” He might have been trampled in the excited onrush of treasure-fevered kender had not a squad of Knights of Neraka been busily rounding up the treasure-seekers for search and interrogation. Instead, the few nearest kender were the only ones to run over and marvel over Finderkeeper’s discovery.
News of magic travels fast. Finderkeeper had arrived at Gimme Glacier only a day before the Knights of Neraka. Sensing, as did the mages of Krynn, the waning power of their magic, the great dragons sought magic artifacts over all else. Their lackeys, the Knights of Neraka, did their bidding, tracking down and taking all magic that they could find. Just as Finderkeeper had been loosing the Irda magic from the glacier’s chilly grip, the Knights had arrived and taken charge of the search for magic at Gimmenthal Glacier.
Vern Hasterck, Commander of the squad of Knights, found no joy in his assignment to Gimmenthal Glacier. It was bad enough that the squad had to do a three-day forced march over the Plains of Dust to arrive quickly, but the southern reaches of the Plains would now be better called the Plains of Mud. Melt-off from the encroaching glacial fingers of Icewall had created a myriad of streams, ponds, and lakes-all unmapped and numbingly cold to cross. The swampy terrain yielded naught but swarms of accursed mosquitoes and biting flies, yet here he was to remain indefinitely, camped in the muck at the foot of a giant slab of ice, trying to corral kender into work details until something useful to his magic-craving dragonmaster could be found. Then and only then could he leave this frozen wasteland.
He could scarcely believe his good fortune when, mere hours after arrival, he heard one of the feckless kender cry out, “I found Irda magic!”
“Seize that kender!” he shouted to his troops. Find-erkeeper heard the order and, after looking quickly over his shoulder to see who the nasty-looking Knight Commander might be talking about, uttered a squeak and backed away. “Take all his goods and bring them to me!”
While being seized is an annoying bother to most kender, the words “take all his goods” are the closest that non-afflicted kender know to actually inspiring fear, or at least aggravation.
“It’s mine! I found it!” protested Finderkeeper as he continued backing away from the squad of Knights moving through the milling kender.
A tumult of protest arose from the kender. Murmurs and shouts of “He’s right!”
“Leave him alone!”
“Find your own magic!” and “Run for it, boy!” erupted from all sides. The commotion was rising, and a fullscale kender riot threatened to break out at any moment. Hasterck was not about to let his chance of getting out of this assignment be missed because of mere kender.
“Kill anyone who gets in your way-anyone who helps him.” Hasterck joined his men in rushing toward Finderkeeper.
Finderkeeper’s squeak was even louder than before, as he turned his heels on the Knights and headed south, up the flowing river of ice. Fortunately, the Knights were tired from their forced march and, though longer of stride than the scampering Finderkeeper, they were unable to gain ground on their quarry.
Hasterck cursed as the quick solution to his unhappy situation scampered upslope, out of reach of his lumbering soldiers. He could not let this opportunity slip away, but he also had to see to the kender camp. Something else, something better and more readily taken might be found. As twilight fell, Hasterck divided the squad into two segments. The majority turned back under his Second-in-Command to question, search, and organize the kender that had not taken the chance to skedaddle during their temporary reprieve from the reaches of authority.
Looking back, Finderkeeper was disappointed to see that the second segment included the two largest Knights and the Knight Commander and that they had set up camp on his trail. It seemed like a lot of fuss and bother. Sure, he had found Irda magic, but he didn’t know what it did or what it used to do. Still, it was his magic and he meant to keep it.
Finderkeeper tried to push on, but it was difficult in the dark. The solitary moon had not yet risen to guide him, and the crevasses grew deeper, wider, and more assuredly deadly as he progressed up the glacier. He angled toward the western edge in the hope that it would be less dangerous, when he was suddenly grabbed by his topknot and hoisted into the air.
“Look what I found, Thrak!” bellowed the large, sinewy Ice Nomad holding Finderkeeper aloft. “If huntin’ don’t improve, we can always take this varmint back for roasting.”
“Put him down, Bodar,” ordered a taller, lankier Ice Nomad on the rocky crags at the edge of the glacier. “That’s no way to teach Garn hospitality on his first hunting trip.” He nodded toward a nearby overhang, where a young boy sat sharpening a spear as he huddled for warmth.
Finderkeeper did his best to retain his composure and not flail about as Bodar carried him by his topknot to the edge of the glacier and set him down upon a large boulder covered with lichens. After gingerly smoothing his topknot, Finderkeeper stuck out his hand toward Thrak, obviously the native with the greatest intelligence, or at least the greatest respect for kender hair.
“Finderkeeper Rumplton, adventurer extraordinaire,” he said in as formal a tone as the gregarious kender could muster.
“Thrak D’Nar, my son Garn, and I think you have already met Bodar.”
“There’s ‘met’ and there’s ‘well met,’ “ intoned the kender. “He would do well to work on the latter.”
“Sorry, Rumpled Bum,” said Bodar gruffly. “You haven’t scared off all the game have you? Mammoth are hard enough to find these days, without the likes of you running them off.”
“Rumplton. Finderkeeper Rumplton. And, no, I didn’t see any mammoths, though I very much would like to do so. Do you think any are nearby? Is that what you eat for food?”
“During the winter we dig up hibernating lemmings and ground squirrels because it’s so hard to travel most times,” volunteered Garn.
“Arrr, boy, don’t be telling him we eat frozen rodents,” Bodar interrupted. “We’re hunters. Don’t you worry, Thrak and me, we’ll find you a mammoth. You just be ready, boy. Do what you need to do. That’s what a hunter does to feed his family.”
Thrak looked at Bodar sternly, but without anger. “And if he needs to dig up hibernating lemmings, that’s what a hunter does to feed his family, too, Bodar.”
“Bazfaz!” muttered the Ice Nomad as he turned away and sought out a good place to sit amongst the jumble of rock.
Finderkeeper fidgeted a bit in the ensuing silence. “I would be happy to share some of the provisions I have with me if, in the morning, you could point me in the direction of a good passage to Ice Mountain Bay. I understand that there might be a trail along the shore that I can take… er… away from this place.”
“Provisions or no, the knowledge is yours for the asking. We-all of us-appreciate the hospitality.”
“All the same,” gruffed Bodar, “mind your possessions Garn. Once something finds its way into a kender’s hands, ‘tis seldom seen again.”
The cold hardtack and jerky that the kender had tucked into one of his pouches long ago were surprisingly well received by the Ice Nomads. Finderkeeper found a ready listener to his tales of adventure in Garn and soon after they had eaten, all were fast asleep.
The nights are short in Icewall in the summer, however, and Finderkeeper was distraught to realize that it was fully light when he awoke. He hastily gathered up his meager belongings and was approaching Thrak for directions when he heard a cry from Bodar, high on the rocky cliff above him. “Warriors! On the ice. Three of them.”
Thrak jumped onto a nearby tumble of rocks and looked in the direction that Bodar pointed. Garn joined him. The Knights had seen the Ice Nomads and were headed toward them.
