had met coming out of Stephen's Grocery.
'But you said you're looking for a couple of men who might have been up to no good, and that certainly fits the description of whoever stole my carrots. My
'But we're looking for men with distinct faces. You said you didn't get a good look at your carrot thieves. It might have been just some of the neighborhood boys out doing a little mischief.'
'Mischief!' Mora's eyes widened with outrage, and her face darkened. 'My best carrots, and you call that mischief?'
'Come on,' Blair growled. 'We're getting nowhere here.'
Mora turned on him. 'And you! The town guard can't even protect my vegetable garden, and you pretend to defend all of Solace?'
Blair backed up a few steps, his hands up as if to ward off Mora's words. 'I'm sure we'll catch whoever's done this to your garden, ma'am. But first we have to find these two men, who might have committed a real crime-'
'Real crime!' Mora shrieked, gathering attention from passersby. 'Desecrating my garden and robbing me of my priceless carrots doesn't qualify as a real crime? I'll have you know that Mistress Dinmore has had her eye on the annual gardening prize for years and will gloat for the rest of her life if she can win it, now that my best carrots have been stolen. She was already out in her yard this morning, smiling in her false way as I discovered the damage to my garden.'
'You're right, Mistress Mora,' Vercleese said hurriedly, taking her arm and drawing her quietly away from Blair and the collecting crowd. Deftly, considering he had only one arm, the knight took out a small notebook and scribbled some words on it. 'I've officially noted your loss, and we will of course investigate the theft of your carrots with all due dispatch. Indeed,' he said over his shoulder to Blair, 'we might start by talking to some of the folks down at The Trough.'
They bade Mora as polite a farewell as they could and rushed away. Blair was muttering imprecations, and Vercleese clapped him on the shoulder. 'Buck up. Soon we'll be among ordinary ruffians down at The Trough. They'll seem positively cooperative by comparison, I'm sure.'
But the clients of The Trough answered Vercleese's and Blair's questions with surly monosyllables, and none who were present fit the descriptions of the two men Vercleese and Blair sought. Try as he might, Vercleese couldn't find anything suspicious or cagey in the customers' replies. It was as if the two ruffians, striking though their appearances might have been, had drifted into Solace as unnoticed as the evening mist and vanished without leaving a trace.
Vercleese's jaw was clenched in frustration as they marched back to the guard headquarters to meet Gerard and tell him they had learned nothing new.
CHAPTER 14
Gerard and Vercleese heard Tangletoe Snakeweed coming long before they saw him. They had just picked up their horses from the stable and were riding toward the southern edge of town.
'It was the greatest calamity of modern day Ansalon,' the kender sang out from a nearby street. 'Stones and bricks and chunks of mortar flew everywhere, falling with a mighty roar all around the temple grounds. Timbers shivered with deafening cracks. The dust thrown into the air blocked the sun for most of an hour, threatening to bury alive those who didn't choke to death first. One whole wall of the new temple collapsed in a heap of rubble. I alone among the few survivors managed to maintain my presence of mind, hurrying here and there heroically to tend to the fallen…'
Gerard turned to Vercleese. 'Did you see the kender on the scene at the new temple yesterday?'
Vercleese shook his head.
'Me neither,' Gerard said. 'He must have been hurrying heroically.'
'Perhaps we were too dazed by the magnitude of the disaster,' Vercleese added with a wry grin.
Gerard made an elaborate show of checking his pockets and purse. 'Huh, that's peculiar. I have all my belongings. Another indication that I didn't have any brush with a kender.'
'Or maybe Tangletoe wasn't in the 'borrowing' mood. That would be an occasion worthy of recording in the histories kept at the great Library of Palanthas.' Vercleese laughed. 'People would flock from all across Krynn just to read the account and marvel at it.'
'Meanwhile,' Tangletoe went on, 'Stephen, renowned throughout Solace for his grocery store where the prices are much more reasonable than anywhere else in town and where all the races of Krynn are welcome to do business, had this to say about the accumulating, confusing number of municipal codes enacted by the town council: 'I don't know why we have to have this accumulating, confusing number of municipal codes enacted by the town council. Why do we vote these guys into office if they're just going to tax and regulate us out of business afterward?' That's an exact quote from Stephen himself, folks, or near enough anyway, minus the curse words.
'In other items of the day…'
The kender's voice receded down an adjacent street, swallowed up by the clamor and bustle of another business day in Solace. Gerard and Vercleese wove through the numerous wagons and carts that made their lumbering way through town. Horses snorted and whiffled, donkeys brayed, workmen shouted oaths and directions, barrels thundered as they were rolled up and down gangplanks and across cobblestones, children laughed and called out singsong rhymes, often mocking the workmen, and men and women passing by carried on lively conversations.
For a town that had witnessed 'the greatest calamity of modern day Ansalon' just yesterday, Gerard thought, Solace seemed to have dragged itself out of the apocalypse and resumed its normal pursuits with admirable alacrity.
Soon he and Vercleese left the turmoil of town life behind them, riding swiftly down a hard-packed dirt road. The horses leaned into the effort, eager to stretch their legs. Dust swirled up behind them, then dropped without a breeze to carry it. They pounded across the bridge of Solace Stream, passing near Jutlin Wykirk's mill with its creaking, slowly turning wheel.
They continued south. When the horses began breathing harder, the men reined them in, letting them resume a steady canter. Although not yet midmorning, the day was already clear and hot. Gerard wiped the sweat from his face with a sleeve. After a time, trees closed in around them, just a few here and there at first, but soon growing thicker until the road narrowed to a mere track and the horses had to proceed in tandem instead of abreast. The day, formerly so bright and clear, now seemed gloomy. Gerard hadn't realized how many birdsongs had enlivened the air around him earlier, until now when they abruptly fell silent. He shivered in the unexpected chill and drew his doublet tighter about him for its scant warmth. At last, Vercleese, in the lead, signaled a halt and slid from the saddle, watching the woods around them warily.
'Just for the record, let me say it again: I don't think this is a good idea,' the knight muttered. 'I used to try to talk Sheriff Joyner out of it as well. But he always claimed he was lucky.'
'He wasn't lucky to be murdered,' Gerard said. Though he was striving to lighten the mood, he regretted his bad joke instantly. Darken Wood pressed close around them, dragging at their spirits. Gerard too dismounted. Something akin to magic prickled along his arms and neck, raising the hairs as if he were standing in the midst of an electrical storm.
'No, in the end he wasn't lucky,' Vercleese said grimly, staring hard at Gerard.
Gerard shrugged and wrapped Thunderbolt's reins around a branch protruding from a deadfall. Vercleese had been arguing with him about this all morning, without making any headway.
'That Samuval is a snake,' Vercleese went on, unwilling to let the matter drop. 'I'm telling you, I wouldn't-'
'Which way?' Gerard interrupted.
Vercleese stared at him.
'Which way?' Gerard repeated, more gently this time.
Mutely, Vercleese pointed into the forest.
