Time of the Twins

This part was austere, compared to that where the Kingpriest and the court resided, although still filled with every conceivable luxury by Krynnish standards. But as Denubis walked the halls, he thought how homey and comforting the soft candlelight appeared. Other clerics passed him with smiles and whispered evening greetings. This was where he belonged. It was simple, like himself.

Heaving another sigh of relief, Denubis reached his own small room and opened the door (nothing was ever locked in the Temple—it showed a distrust of one’s fellows) and started to enter. Then he stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he had glimpsed movement, a dark shadow within darker shadows. He stared intently down the corridor. There was nothing there. It was empty.

I am getting old. My eyes are playing tricks, Denubis told himself, shaking his head wearily. Walking into the room, his white robes whispering around his ankles, he shut the door firmly, then reached for his stomach powder.

3

A key rattled in the lock of the cell door.

Tasslehoff sat bolt upright. Pale light crept into the cell through a tiny, barred window set high in the thick, stone wall. Dawn, he thought sleepily. The key rattled again, as if the jailer was having trouble opening the lock. Tas cast an uneasy glance at Caramon on the opposite side of the cell. The big man lay on the stone slab that was his bed without moving or giving any sign that he heard the racket.

A bad sign, Tas thought anxiously, knowing the well-trained warrior (when he wasn’t drunk) would once have awakened at the sound of footsteps outside the room. But Caramon had neither moved nor spoken since the guards brought them here yesterday. He had refused food and water (although Tas had assured him it was a cut above most prison food). He lay on the stone slab and stared up at the ceiling until nightfall. Then he had moved, a little at least—he had shut his eyes.

The key was rattling louder than ever, and added to its noise was the sound of the jailer swearing. Hurriedly Tas stood up and crossed the stone floor, plucking straw out of his hair and smoothing his clothes as he went. Spotting a battered stool in the corner, the kender dragged it over to the door, stood upon it, and peered through the barred window in the door down at the jailer on the other side.

“Good morning,” Tas said cheerfully. “Having some trouble?”

The jailer jumped three feet at the unexpected sound and nearly dropped his keys. He was small man, wizened and gray as the walls. Glaring up at the kender’s face through the bars, the jailer snarled and, inserting the key in the lock once more, poked and shook it vigorously. A man standing behind the jailer scowled. He was a large, well-built man, dressed in fine clothes and wrapped against the morning chill in a bear-skin cape. In his hand, he held a piece of slate, a bit of chalkrock dangling from it by a leather thong.

“Hurry up,” the man snarled at the jailer. “The market opens at midday and I’ve got to get this lot cleaned up and decent-looking by then.”

“Must be broken,” muttered the jailer.

“Oh, no, it’s not broken,” Tas said helpfully. “Actually, in fact, I think your key would fit just fine if my lockpick wasn’t in the way.”

The jailer slowly lowered the keys and raised his eyes to look balefully at the kender.

“It was the oddest accident,” Tas continued. “You see, I was rather bored last night—Caramon fell asleep early—and you had taken away all my things, so, when I just happened to discover that you’d missed a lockpick I keep in my sock, I decided to try it on this door, just to keep my hand in, so to speak, and to see what kind of jails you built back here. You do build a very nice jail, by the way,” Tas said solemnly. “One of the nicest I’ve ever been in—er, one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. By the way, my name is Tasslehoff Burrfoot.” The kender squeezed his hand through the bar in case either of them wanted to shake it. They didn’t. “And I’m from Solace. So’s my friend. We’re here on a sort of mission you might say and—Oh, yes, the lock. Well, you needn’t glare at me so, it wasn’t my fault. In fact, it was your stupid lock that broke my lockpick! One of my best, too. My father’s,” the kender said sadly. “He gave it to me on the day I came of age. I really think,” Tas added in a stern voice, “that you could at least apologize.”

At this, the jailer made a strange sound, sort of a snort and an explosion. Shaking his ring of keys at the kender, he snapped something incoherent about “rotting in that cell forever” and started walking off, but the man in the bear-skin cape grabbed hold of him.

“Not so fast. I need the one in here.”

“I know, I know,” the jailer whined in a thin voice, “but you’ll have to wait for the locksmith—”

“Impossible. My orders are to put ’im on the block today.”

“Well, then you come up with some way to get them outta there.” The jailer sneered. “Get the kender a new lockpick. Now, do you want the rest of the lot or not?”