Margaret Weis - Time of the Twins

“Promise me you won’t leave this room, Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Promise just like you’d promise... say, Tanis, if he were here.”

“I promise,” Tas said solemnly, “just like I’d promise Tanis—if he were here.”

“Good.” Caramon sighed and collapsed onto a bed that creaked in protest, the mattress sagging clear to the floor beneath the big man’s weight. “I guess someone’ll wake us up when they decide what they’re going to do.”

“Will you really go back in time, Caramon?” Tas asked wistfully, sitting down on his own bed and pretending to unlace his boots.

“Yeah, sure. ’S no big thing,” Caramon murmured sleepily.

“Now get some sleep and... thanks, Tas. You’ve been... you’ve been... a big help... “His words trailed off into a snore.

Tas held perfectly still, waiting until Caramon’s breathing became even and regular. That didn’t take long because the big man was emotionally and physically exhausted. Looking at Caramon’s pale, careworn, and tear-streaked face, the kender felt a moment’s twinge of conscience. But kender are accustomed to dealing with twinges of conscience—just as humans are accustomed to dealing with mosquito bites.

“He’ll never know I’ve been gone,” Tas said to himself as he sneaked across the floor past Caramon’s bed. “And I really didn’t promise him I wouldn’t go anywhere. I promised Tanis. And Tanis isn’t here, so the promise doesn’t count. Besides, I’m certain he would have wanted to explore, if he hadn’t been so tired.”

By the time Tas crept past Bupu’s grubby little body, he had firmly convinced himself that Caramon had ordered him to look around before going to bed. He tried the door handle with misgivings, remembering Caramon’s warning. But it opened easily. We are guests then, not prisoners. Unless there was a lich standing guard outside. Tas poked his head around the door-frame. He looked up the hall, then down the hall. Nothing. Not a lich in sight. Sighing a bit in disappointment, Tas slipped out the door, then shut it softly behind him.

The hallway ran to his left and to his right, vanishing around shadowy corners at either end. It was barren, cold, and empty. Other doors branched off from the hallway, all of them dark, all of them closed. There were no decorations of any kind, no tapestries hung on the walls, no carpets covered the stone floor. There weren’t even any lights, no torches, no candles. Apparently the mages were supposed to provide their own if they did any wandering about after dark.

A window at one end did allow the light of Solinari, the silver moon, to filter through its glass panes, but that was all. The rest of the hallway was completely dark. Too late Tas thought of sneaking back into the room for a candle. No. If Caramon woke up, he might not remember he had told the kender to go exploring.

“I’ll just pop into one of these other rooms and borrow a candle,” Tas said to himself. “Besides, that’s a good way to meet people.”

Gliding down the hall quieter than the moonbeams that danced on the floor, Tas reached the next door. “I won’t knock, in case they’re asleep,” he reasoned and carefully turned the doorknob. “Ah, locked!” he said, feeling immensely cheered.

This would give him something to do for a few minutes at least. Pulling out his lockpicking tools, he held them up to the moonlight to select the proper size wire for this particular lock.

“I hope it’s not magically locked,” he muttered, the sudden thought making him grow cold. Magicians did that sometimes, he knew—a habit kender consider highly unethical. But maybe in the Tower of High Sorcery, surrounded by mages, they wouldn’t figure it would be worthwhile. “I mean, anyone could just come along and blow the door down,” Tas reasoned.

Sure enough, the lock opened easily. His heart beating with excitement, Tas shoved the door open quietly and peered inside. The room was lit only by the faint glow of a dying fire. He listened. He couldn’t hear anyone in it, no sounds of snoring or breathing, so he walked in, padding softly. His sharp eyes found the bed. It was empty. No one home.

“Then they won’t mind if I borrow their candle,” the kender said to himself happily. Finding a candlestick, he lit the wick with a glowing coal. Then he gave himself up to the delights of examining the occupant’s belongings, noticing as he did so that whoever resided in this room was not a very tidy person.

About two hours and many rooms later, Tas was wearily returning to his own room, his pouches bulging with the most fascinating items—all of which he was fully determined to return to their owners in the morning. He had picked most of them up off the tops of tables where they had obviously been carelessly tossed. He found more than a few on the floor (he was certain the owners had lost them) and had even rescued several from the pockets of robes that were probably destined to be laundered, in which case these items would certainly have been misplaced.

Looking down the hall, he received a severe shock, however, when he saw light streaming out from under their door!

“Caramon!” He gulped, but at that moment a hundred possible excuses for being out of the room entered his brain. Or perhaps Caramon might not even have missed him yet. Maybe he was into the dwarf spirits. Considering this possibility, Tas tiptoed up to the closed door of their room and pressed his ear against it, listening.

He heard voices. One he recognized immediately—Bupu’s. The other... he frowned. It seemed familiar... where had he heard it?

“Yes, I am going to send you back to the Highpulp, if that is where you want to go? But first you must tell where the Highpulp is.”

The voice sound faintly exasperated. Apparently, this had been going on for some time. Tas put his eye to the keyhole. He could see Bupu, her hair clotted with milk potatoes, glaring suspiciously at a red-robed figure. Now Tas remembered where he’d heard the voice—that was the man at the Conclave, who kept questioning Par-Salian!

“Highbulp!” Bupu repeated indignantly. “Not Highpulp! And Highbulp is home. You send me home.”

“Yes, of course. Now where is home?”

“Where Highbulp is.”

“And where is the Highpul—bulp?” the red-robed mage asked in hopeless tones.

“Home,” Bupu stated succinctly. “I tell you that before. You got ears under that hood? Maybe you deaf.” The gully dwarf disappeared from Tas’s sight for a moment, diving into her bag. When she reappeared, she held another dead lizard, a leather thong wrapped around its tail. “Me cure. You stick tail in ear and—”

“Thank you,” said the mage hastily, “but my hearing is quite perfect, I assure you. Uh, what do you call your home? What is the name?”

“The Pitt. Two Ts. Some fancy name, huh?” Bupu said proudly. “That Highbulp’s idea. Him ate book once. Learned lots. All right here.” She patted her stomach.

Tas clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from giggling. The red-robed mage was experiencing similar problems as well. Tas saw the man’s shoulders shake beneath his red robes, and it took him a while to respond. When he did, his voice had a faint quiver.

“What... what do humans call the name of your—the—uh—Pitt?”

Tas saw Bupu scowl. “Dumb name. Sound like someone spit up. Skroth.”

“Skroth,” the red-robed mage repeated, mystified. “Skroth,” he muttered. Then he snapped his fingers. “I remember. The kender said it in the Conclave. Xak Tsaroth?”

“Me say that once already. You sure you not want lizard cure for ears? You put tail—”

Heaving a sigh of relief, the red-robed mage held his hand out over Bupu’s head. Sprinkling what looked like dust down over her (Bupu sneezed violently), Tas heard the mage chant strange words.