* * * * *
"Yeah, I know Flint Fireforge, but you just missed him," the jowly barkeep at the Inn of the Last Home told Gaesil a half-hour later. "He and Tanis tore out of here more than an hour ago." The innkeeper, whose name was Otik, balanced two plates of fried potatoes and sausage on his forearm, having just come through the swinging kitchen door. "Do you mind?" he asked, nodding his head from the plates to the patrons who awaited them.
"Oh, not at all," Gaesil said. He sat down absently on a stool to wait for the innkeeper's return, while he pondered Otik's comment. Tanis . . . where had he heard that name before?
"Now, you were asking?" Otik said, returning, his arms free. He wiped his hands on his dingy white apron and moved behind the bar.
"Flint Fireforge. You said he'd left. Will I find him at the festival?"
Otik chuckled. "You might, but I doubt it. He and Tanis were hot on the trail of a kender. He'd stolen a very important bracelet from Flint."
Gaesil's eyes went as wide and round as two steel pieces and his mouth fell open. He remembered the dwarf and the elf on the bridge! That's where he'd heard of Tanis. But the dwarf had never been called by name. How could he have known? The kender hadn't mentioned that the dwarf would have a friend with him, an elf at that.
"Something wrong?" the barkeep asked him, noting the tinker's startled expression.
Gaesil put his knobby hand into the pocket of his breeches and his fingers closed around the bracelet. "I have—" But the tinker stopped short. He was about to give the bracelet to the innkeeper to return to Flint the next time the dwarf visited the inn, but he was having second thoughts. "You say Flint left town and won't be running his booth at the festival?"
"Not until he finds that kender. And the festival will only last another couple of days."
"I see." Gaesil was already mulling the situation. With the dwarf out of town and unable to sell his wares anyway, his booth would be vacant. Gaesil could borrow it and no one would be put out, though there might be trouble if the dwarf caught up to the kender, returned before the festival ended, and found a stranger using his business space. Judging from what Gaesil had seen, Flint Fireforge didn't seem the affable kind.
On the other hand, Gaesil could claim he was waiting at the booth to return the bracelet to its rightful owner, the dwarf. If he conducted a little business to pay his expenses while waiting, no one could hold that against him. If the festival closed up before the dwarf returned, why, then, Gaesil could hand the bracelet over to the innkeeper and skedaddle. It wasn't dishonest, he reasoned, just good business.
"I'm a little busy, friend. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Otik's mild voice interrupted Gaesil's thoughts.
"I'm sorry," the tinker said, bouncing back to the present. He scratched ruefully at his mud-caked skin. "Actually, I could use a bath before I head over to the festival grounds. Do you have a bathtub on the premises?"
* * * * *
A pink and scrubbed Gaesil emerged from the inn an hour later and wound his way down the bridgewalk to the ground, his hair freshly washed, his road clothing in his hand newly clean and ready to hang to dry. He had put on his best tunic and trousers—not too plain, so as to make customers think him a novice at his trade, and not too fancy, so as to make them think him too high-priced. He had removed the dwarf's bracelet from his breeches before washing them and placed it in the pocket of his clean trousers for safekeeping.
The tinker hiked the short distance to the stables, where he had left Bella and his wagon in the care of a young hand, a well-fed, red-haired boy of thirteen. Paying one steel piece for Bella's food and grooming, he clambered onto the seat of his wagon and leaned back through the small front opening to hang his clothing inside. A quick glance told him nothing was missing—the lad had done a good job.
Turning back, he pulled the kender's map of the festival grounds from a box under the seat. He knew from previous years that the fair was held on the west edge of town, within sight of CrystalmirLake. He was currently on the northeast side of Solace. There was no direct route to the festival, so he set Bella's head back down the road to the south, turning right to pass the town square's north side. The road narrowed and turned into a quagmire.
He heard the festival before he saw it, sprawled across the land to the west dipping down behind the cover of the vallenwoods. Fairs, no matter the season, were always noisy, bawdy events, mucky swamps in spring and fall, choking clouds of dust in summer. And of course, in snowy regions like Abanasinia, they were seldom held during winter.
Gaesil consulted the kender's map, locating the "X" that marked the dwarf's stall. Instead of taking the direct route, down the main, mired thoroughfare on which the fairgoers walked, he traced a path to the back of the stalls with his index finger, calloused from years of sharpening dull knives to razor points and other exciting tinker tasks. The wagons and carts of countless merchants had dug trenches in the newly thawed thatch, but the going was still easier.
The tinker located the dwarf's booth without trouble and reined in his wagon as close as possible. A
