Mark Anthony - Kindred Spirits

“Flint, no!” Tanis yelled, his face horrified.

Flint looked ahead… out… and down. The outcropping, which had a gentle grade on three sides, ended sharply at the edge on this side. The dwarf was a scant foot away from a drop of at least six hundred feet, maybe more.

He felt his blood freeze. Then a strong hand clamped down on his collar and jerked him back. Tanis and the dwarf lost their balance together on the uneven rocks and landed with a “hoof!” on the safe, solid granite. The half-elf was pale, and Flint patted the rock appreciatively with one clammy hand while his brain whirled.

“I…” Flint paused.

“You…” Tanis paused.

They stared at each other for a protracted moment, until Flint drew a shuddery breath. “The edge comes up a bit sudden there,” he said.

A crooked smile stirred faintly on the half-elf’s face. “A bit,” he agreed.

Flint, recovering his grumpiness, sat up and recovered his money-pouch, which had fallen from his tunic in the tumble. “Not that I was ever in any real danger of falling, though,” he reassured himself.

“Oh, no,” Tanis said, a little too quickly. “Certainly not.”

“Perhaps this would be a good time to stop to recov-ah, to stop for lunch,” the dwarf added.

Tanis nodded and retrieved their lunch sack. By unspoken agreement, they moved back from the edge another ten feet or so.

“I’m not worried for myself, mind you,” Flint said. “I just don’t know how I’d tell the Speaker you’d gone and dropped yourself off a cliff.” Tanis said nothing.

They broke bread in the bright sun of midmorning, with Flint pressing on Tanis the largest slices of cheese, the tastiest chunks of bread, and the finest pieces of fruit. Then they sat for a short time enjoying the view from a decent space back from the cliff, and decided to head back to Qualinost; Hint had work to do at the forge.

The problems began as the adventurers started the way back. The path must have forked as they came to the Kentommenai-kath, and neither had noticed. When they returned, they took the wrong path. Then the weather entered the picture. First a single dark cloud drifted past the sun.

“As my mother used to say, ‘One cloud gets lonely,’ “ Flint pointed out to the half-elf. Within a short time, a gray phalanx of clouds had crossed the sky overhead. The cloudy sky seemed to lower at an alarming rate, so that Tanis half thought it would drop right onto their heads, but the only thing that did was the rain-big, cold drops. Before long, half-elf and dwarf were soaked and chilled, and Flint had taken to grumbling the words “No more adventures… no more adventures…” over and over again.

All this might not have been so bad had it not been for the shortcut. Tanis expressed reluctance, but Flint only glared challengingly at him as the dwarf pointed down a barely visible footpath that cut off from the main trail.

“I thought I was the one who had traveled the face of Krynn,” Flint griped. “I suppose I was just mistaken.”

Tanis spent the next ten minutes assuring the dwarf that, indeed, Flint was the one who had had the experience on the road, that Flint was the one who knew forests like the back of his hand, and, yes, that he was the one who had been paying enough attention to practical matters on the way up to have seen the shortcut. Furthermore, he had fought off a rampaging tylor the previous day, practically unarmed. And so they plunged through the undergrowth onto the faint footpath leading into the rain-soaked woods.

They plunged deeper into the woods, watching worriedly for the tylor and growing soggier with each moment.

Two hours later, as the rain continued unabated, they ran into a tylor-hunting party and accompanied the group of unsuccessful hunters home. But Flint was coughing by the time they reached the outskirts of Qualinost, and feverish by the time Tanis pulled off his friend’s waterlogged tunic, breeches, and boots. Tanis wrapped him in a blanket, pushed him into a chair, and fired the forge for extra heat.

Now, in late afternoon, as Tanis stirred a pot of venison stew over the fire, the force of Flint’s sneeze sent the chair tilting backward so precariously that Tanis leaped to grab it before it tumbled over.

“Oof!” Tanis grunted, his knees nearly buckling as he pushed against the big wooden chair. “I know you aren’t terribly tall, Flint, but you are a bit on the dense side.” With a good deal of effort, he righted the chair, but the dwarf seemed less than grateful.

“Ah, what does it matter if I fall, seeing as I’m dying anyway?” the dwarf said glumly. He blew his nose into his linen handkerchief, a gift from the Speaker of the Sun, with a sound like a badly tuned trumpet. “At least that way I’ll be all laid out and ready for my coffin.” Flint huddled deeper into his woolen blanket and stuck his big-toed feet back in a steaming pail of water. Close as he was to the glowing coals of the forge, the heat couldn’t drive the chill from his dwar-ven bones, and his teeth chattered as he shivered.

“As it is, I’m practically frigid with cold anyway. Might as well be officially dead,” Flint complained.

“I could mull you some elvenblossom wine.”

Flint glared. “Why not take your sword and end my pain quickly? I’ll not go to Reorx embalmed in elven perfume!”

“Flint,” Tanis said gravely, “I know you’ll be terribly disappointed. But you’ve only got a cold. You’re not dying.”

‘Well, how would you know?” Hint growled. “Have you ever died?” Flint let out another monumental sneeze, his bulbous nose glowing red, a complement to the glow of the setting sun. Tanis could only shake his head. There was an odd sort of logic to the dwarf’s statement.

“No more adventures,” Flint roared. “No more tylors. Give me ogres any day. No more sla-mori. No more walks in the rain on the edge of the elven version of the Abyss.” He paused to gather strength for another volley. “This is all because I took that bath. Dwarves were not meant to be immersed in water two days in a row!” That last sentence, Tanis noted, sounded more like “Dwarvz were dod bed du be ibbersed id wadder du days idda row.”

It’s hard to believe the two had been sitting comfortably here at the forge only a day earlier, the half-elf thought.

Flint sniffled and blew his nose again. He set a warm washcloth on the top of his head, and, draped as he was in his dark blanket, he looked almost like some cheap mystic at a petty fair. “That’s the last time 111 make the mistake of listening to you,” he grumbled for the umpteenth time.

Tanis did his best to hide his smile as he poured hot tea for the dwarf and set the mug in his stubby hands. “The rain has stopped. I should go practice with Tyresian.”

“This late? Fine, leave me to die alone,” Flint said. “But don’t come back and expect me to say, ‘Hullo, Tanis, how are you? Come inside and ruin an old dwarf’s day, won’t you?’ After all; I’ll be dead. You’ve got an hour or two left of daylight. See you later,” he said, waving his hand at Tanis. “Or then, probably not,” he added glumly.

Tanis shook his head. When Flint was like this, it was simply best to leave him to enjoy his misery. Tanis made sure the kettle was in the dwarf’s reach and that the water in the bucket was hot enough. He spooned a healthy portion of stew into a wooden trencher for Flint, then gathered his longbow and arrows and prepared to abandon the dwarf.

But as the half-elf gained the doorway of the dwarf’s shop, he came face to face with two visitors-the Speaker of the Sun and Lord Tyresian.

Tyresian ignored the dwarf and snapped, “Are you always late for your lessons?” to the half-elf, then resumed a heated discussion with the Speaker. It seemed to be a onesided discussion; Solostaran appeared unflappable today, nodding gravely in response to the elf lord’s vigorous comments but making no statements that could be interpreted as affirming them.