Margaret Weis - Time of the Twins

“Me go home now?” Bupu asked hopefully.

The mage did not answer, he kept chanting.

“Him not nice,” she muttered to herself, sneezing again as the dust slowly coated her hair and body. “None of them nice. Not like my pretty man.” She wiped her nose, snuffling. “Him not laugh... him call me ‘little one.’”

The dust on the gully dwarf began to glow a faint yellow. Tas gasped softly. The glow grew brighter and brighter, changing color, turning yellow-green, then green, then green-blue, then blue and suddenly—

“Bupu!” Tas whispered.

The gully dwarf was gone!

“And I’m next!” Tas realized in horror. Sure enough, the red-robed mage was limping across the room to the bed where the thoughtful kender had made up a dummy of himself so that Caramon wouldn’t be worried in case he woke up.

“Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” the red-robed mage called softly. He had passed beyond Tas’s sight. The kender stood frozen, waiting for the mage to discover he was missing. Not that he was afraid of getting caught. He was used to getting caught and was fairly certain he could talk his way out of it. But he was afraid of being sent home! They didn’t really expect Caramon to go anywhere without him, did they?

“Caramon needs me!” Tas whispered to himself in agony. “They don’t know what bad shape he’s in. Why, what would happen if he didn’t have me along to drag him out of bars?”

“Tasslehoff,” the red-robed mage’s voice repeated. He must be nearing the bed.

Hurriedly, Tas’s hand dove into his pouch. Pulling out a fistful of junk, he hoped against hope he’d found something useful. Opening his small hand, he held it up to the candlelight. He had come up with a ring, a grape, and a lump of moustache wax. The wax and the grape were obviously out. He tossed them to the floor.

“Caramon!” Tas heard the red-robed mage say sternly. He could hear Caramon grunt and groan and pictured the mage shaking him. “Caramon, wake up. Where’s the kender?”

Trying to ignore what was happening in the room, Tas concentrated on examining the ring. It was probably magical. He’d picked it up in the third room to the left. Or was it the fourth? And magical rings usually worked just by being worn. Tas was an expert on the subject. He’d accidentally put on a magical ring once that had teleported him right into the heart of an evil wizard’s palace. There was every possibility this might do the same. He had no idea what it did.

Maybe there was some sort of clue on the ring?

Tas turned it over, nearly dropping it in his haste. Thank the gods Caramon was so hard to wake up!

It was a plain ring, carved out of ivory, with two small pink stones. There were some runes traced on the inside. Tas recalled his magical Glasses of Seeing with a pang, but they were lost in Neraka, unless some draconian was wearing them.

“Wha... wha...” Caramon was babbling. “Kender? I told him... don’t go out there... liches...”

“Damn!” The red-robed mage was heading for the door.

Please, Fizban! the kender whispered, if you remember me at all, which I don’t suppose you do, although you might—I was the one who kept finding your hat. Please, Fizban! Don’t let them send Caramon off without me. Make this a Ring of Invisibility. Or at least a Ring of Something that will keep them from catching me!

Closing his eyes tightly so he wouldn’t see anything Horrible he might accidentally conjure up, Tas thrust the ring over his thumb. (At the last moment he opened his eyes, so that he wouldn’t miss seeing anything Horrible he might conjure up.)

At first, nothing happened. He could hear the red-robed mage’s halting footsteps coming nearer and nearer the door.

Then—something was happening, although not quite what Tas expected. The hall was growing! There was a rushing sound in the kender’s ears as the walls swooped past him and the ceiling soared away from him. Open-mouthed, he watched as the door grew larger and larger, until it was an immense size.

What have I done? Tas wondered in alarm. Have I made the Tower grow? Do you suppose anyone’ll notice? If they do, will they be very upset?

The huge door opened with a gust of wind that nearly flattened the kender. An enormous red-robed figure filled the doorway.

A giant! Tas gasped. I’ve not only made the Tower grow! I’ve made the mages grow, too! Oh, dear. I guess they’ll notice that! At least they will the first time they try to put on their shoes! And I’m sure they’ll be upset. I would be if I was twenty feet tall and none of my clothes fit.

But the red-robed mage didn’t seem at all perturbed about suddenly shooting up in height, much to Tas’s astonishment. He just peered up and down the hall, yelling, “Tasslehoff Burrfoot!”

He even looked right at where Tas was standing—and didn’t see him!

“Oh, thank you, Fizban!” the kender squeaked. Then he coughed. His voice certainly did sound funny. Experimentally, he said, “Fizban?” again. Again, he squeaked.

At that moment, the red-robed mage glanced down.

“Ah, ha! And whose room have you escaped from, my little friend’?” the mage said.

As Tasslehoff watched in awe, a giant hand reached down—it was reaching down for him! The fingers got nearer and nearer. Tas was so startled he couldn’t run or do anything except wait for that gigantic hand to grab him. Then it would be all over! They’d send him home instantly, if they didn’t inflict a worse punishment on him for enlarging their Tower when he wasn’t at all certain that they wanted it enlarged. The hand hovered over him and then picked him up by his tail.

“My tail!” Tas thought wildly, squirming in midair as the hand lifted him off the floor. “I haven’t got a tail! But I must! The hand’s got hold of me by something!”

Twisting his head around, Tas saw that indeed, he did have a tail! Not only a tail, but four pink feet! Four! And instead of bright blue leggings, he was wearing white fur!

“Now, then,” boomed a stern voice right in one of his ears, “answer me, little rodent! Whose familiar are you?”

Familliar! Tasslehoff clutched at the word. Familiar... Talks with Raistlin came back to his fevered mind.

“Some magi have animals that are bound to do their bidding,” Raistlin had told him once. “These animals, or familiars as they are called, can act as an extension of a mage’s own senses. They can go places he cannot, see things he is unable to see, hear conversations he has not been invited to share.”

At the time, Tasslehoff had thought it a wonderful idea, although he recalled Raistlin had not been impressed. He seemed to consider it a weakness, to be so heavily dependent upon another living being.

“Well, answer me?” the red-robed mage demanded, shaking Tasslehoff by the tail. Blood rushed to the kender’s head, making him dizzy, plus being held by the tail was quite painful, to say nothing of the indignity! All he could do, for a moment, was to give thanks that Flint couldn’t see him.

I suppose, he thought bleakly, that familiars can talk. I hope they speak Common, not something strange—like Mouse, for example.

“I’m—I—uh—belong to”—what was a good name for a mage?—“Fa—Faikus,” Tas squeaked, remembering hearing Raistlin use this name in connection with a fellow student long ago.

“Ah,” the red-robed mage said with a frown, “I might have known. Were you out upon some errand for your master or simply roaming around loose?”

Fortunately for Tas, the mage changed his hold upon the kender, releasing his tail to grasp him firmly in his hand. The kender’s front paws rested quivering on the red-robed mage’s thumb, his now beady, bright-red eyes stared into the mage’s cool, dark ones.