“We’re having some problems with a dragon back home,” Kronn replied.
Kael barked a harsh laugh, then checked himself, glancing at the old Plainsman. “Don’t tell me he’s serious,” he said.
“He is,” Riverwind stated, drawing himself up proudly so he towered over the captain. His face, though still pale from nausea, grew stern and severe. “We’re going east to help the kender.”
“You’re mad, then,” Kael said firmly. “No sane man would leave his home and kin and travel across Ansalon, just to help a bunch of bloody kender.”
“No offense intended, I’m sure,” Catt interjected, bristling.
Kael said nothing, smiling unpleasantly.
“What I choose to do is of no concern to you, Captain,” Riverwind said. He turned away, striding purposefully toward the hatch that led down into
The hold was dim, lit by a single lantern that swung from the ceiling, in time with the creaking of the hull. A strange smell hung in the air, mixing salt and stale sweat with the scents of spices and wine, remnants of cargoes the ship had carried before.
Riverwind paused at the lamp, twisting its key until its light was bright enough to read by, then led the way to a broad table near the fore of the ship. He shoved aside the dirty bowls and playing cards the sailors had left on it.
The kender unslung a large, overstuffed pack from his shoulder. As Catt, Brightdawn, and Swiftraven gathered around the table, Kronn plopped the pouch down and began to root through it. It was stuffed almost to bursting with maps of all shapes and sizes, from vellum charts illuminated in gold leaf and precious inks to tattered scraps of rag paper whose markings were almost unreadable.
“These aren’t all mine, in case you’re interested,” Kronn declared. “That is, they’re mine now, but a lot of them used to belong to my father. This isn’t even his whole collection, either. You see, the strangest thing happened in Kendermore at the reading of the will. A bunch of his maps just sort of disappeared. So did a lot of his other possessions. It was most peculiar.”
Swiftraven snorted derisively, but Brightdawn cut in before Kronn could respond. “I’ve heard stories about Kronin,” she said. “Your father sounded like quite a fighter.”
“He was,” Kronn agreed proudly.
“There’s something I always wanted to know, though,” Brightdawn continued. “There’s all sorts of stories about how he killed Lord Toede, back during the War of the Lance. Which one of them is true?”
Kronn exchanged glances with Catt, then shrugged and returned to rustling through his pouch. “Beats me.”
“But certainly you must know the truth,” Brightdawn ventured. “You’re his son, after all.”
“You know, that would make sense, especially to a human,” Kronn agreed. “Unfortunately, I happened to be away from home when it all happened. I-we… Catt was with me-had gone to the slave markets at Trigol-”
“It was Ak-Krol,” Catt interrupted. “Trigol was earlier in the war.”
Kronn hesitated in mid-rustle, frowning. “Was it? I thought we went to Ak-Krol first, then Trigol. Remember, at Ak-Krol we had that little problem when the lighthouse mirror fell into my pouch, and that dragonarmy galleon crashed and sank? All because the lighthouse-keeper couldn’t keep better track of his things…”
“That was Trigol,” Catt said. “Ak-Krol was toward the end of the war.”
Kronn’s frown deepened. “I don’t think so.”
“Anyway,” Swiftraven cut in impatiently, “wherever it was, you were there for some reason.”
“Eh? Oh. Right,” Kronn said. “Well, I suppose the ‘reason’ was to organize a revolt. Although it all just kind of happened. That was quite a bit of fun, wasn’t it, Catt?”
Catt nodded. “We couldn’t wait to hear what that lump Toede would say about us freeing all those slaves.”
“When we got home, though, Toede was already dead,” Kronn said. “Which was a bit of a disappointment. My father told us all about it. Of course we had our own heroic story to tell. So maybe we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have. I forget the details.”
“He told it various ways,” Catt offered.
“So did other folk, not only kender. Bards and such.”
“After a while, all the versions just melted together in my mind,” said Kronn. “I sure remember Trigol, though.”
“Ak-Krol,” insisted Catt.
The Plainsfolk nodded patiently. After a moment Kronn pulled out a map scrawled on what looked like lizard skin and turned it this way and that, trying to make it out in the lamplight. Then he tucked it away again, flipped past a few more maps, and stopped.
“Ah! Here we go.”
With a flourish, he produced a sheaf of brittle, yellowed parchment from his pouch. He unfolded it with great care and spread it out across the table. Scrawled on it in smudged charcoal was a crude map of the eastern half of Ansalon.
“Is this accurate?” Riverwind asked, leaning forward.
Kronn shrugged. “More or less.”
“It looks kind of old,” Brightdawn noted. “I can’t even find Ak-Thain on it.”
“Oh, that’s because it wasn’t called Ak-Thain when the map was made,” Kronn said. “It used to be an ogre town called Thulkorr. Here it is.” He stabbed a finger down on a river mouth on the eastern coast of the New Sea. “The ogres there were all wiped out during the Chaos War-daemon warriors got them, from what I gather. Men from Khur took it over afterward and changed the name. Darned nuisance from a map-lover’s point of view.”
Riverwind squinted at the map, then shook his head. “This is old. It says the area we’re heading toward is rife with the Green Dragonarmy. It’s been years since anywhere’s been rife with the dragonarmies.”
“Hmmm.” Kronn stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right.”
“So where do we go from Ak-Thain?” Brightdawn asked, peering at the map.
“Oh, we just follow the Spice Road,” Kronn said.
“I don’t see that here,” Riverwind said.
“That’s because it’s not on the map. It’s new. The Khurmen set it up as a trade route to the west when they took over Thulkorr.” Kronn peered at the Plainsman, his brow furrowing. “Don’t worry, all the new roads are in my head.”
Swiftraven groaned and began to rub his forehead.
“Where does this, uh, Spice Road lead?” Riverwind asked.
“Here,” Kronn replied. He traced a snaking path east from Ak-Thain across the desert land of Khur. “If I remember right, and I very nearly always do, it should come out right here at Ak-Khurman. Strange, how so many Khurrish towns are Ak-Something, isn’t it? I wonder what Ak- means?”
Riverwind examined Ak-Khurman, which was perched on the tip of a peninsula on the western coast of the Bay of Balifor. “Then our direction is clear enough,” he said. “We’ll cross the desert, then take another boat from Ak-Khurman across the bay to Port Balifor. From there, we can ride straight on to Kendermore. We should arrive in less than a month, well before winter.”
“I hope that’s in time,” Catt said ruefully.
Kronn folded the map and clamped it in his teeth as he leafed through his map pouch, looking for its place. “Solamnia,” he muttered around the parchment, “Estwilde, Qualinesti, Icewall, Thorbardin, Nordmaar, Balifor, Tarsis… ah, here it is. Ansalon, East.” Smiling in satisfaction, he slid the map back into the case.
Brightdawn, having watched him sort through the maps, frowned in confusion. “Is there some sort of system to that?” she asked, nodding toward the pouch.
Kronn looked at her. “Of course there’s a system,” he said, a bit put out. “You don’t think I’d keep my maps all willy-nilly, do you? I’d never find anything. I’ve sorted them alphabetically, I’ll have you know.”
“But,” Brightdawn protested, “you’ve got Solamnia before Estwilde, and Nordmaar before Balifor. It’s all out of order.”
“I organized them by the last letter,” Kronn said. “That way, I know where everything is, but someone who
