David Cook - Beyong the Moons

Gomja stepped out of the direct line of the barrel. “It is a pistol. May I have it?”

“Pis-tol? Last night, you pointed this at me and it exploded. Why?” Teldin made no effort to hide his suspicion.

The giff bit at his lip, a comical sight for one so heavily jowled. “I thought you meant harm to my captain.”

“So this is a weapon, isn’t it?”

The giff nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Gnomish work,” Teldin speculated as he turned the pistol over and over in his hands. The gnomes were notorious inventors and tinkerers, equally notorious for their inventions’ spectacular failures. “Must be, from the way it blew up. For now, I’ll keep them,” Teldin told the giff as he wrapped the bizarre weapons back up.

“What about the bags?” the giff asked, trying to conceal his disappointment.

For a moment, Teldin considered claiming those, too. He couldn’t fathom what their purpose was. “Wizard things,” Teldin guessed. “I say leave them, but you can take them if you want.” Magic was not something Teldin cared to dabble with. It was too dangerous, unpredictable, and even corrupting.

The giff carefully took them up and checked to make sure the strings on each bag were tight. Satisfied, he tucked the bundles into the dirty orange folds of his sash. “Thank you, sir.”

The giffs mammoth jaw opened in a huge yawn, exposing two rows of huge, blockish teeth.

Teldin suppressed a bemused smile. “When did you last sleep?” the farmer asked. He felt somewhat rested while his companion looked far ftom soothed.

“Two days, sir,” Gomja replied, closing his huge maw.

Apparently, Teldin figured, being blasted unconscious by your own weapon didn’t count as sleep. “Then go get some rest,” Teldin gently said. Gomja opened his mouth to protest, but Teldin cut him off. “That was an order, Trooper Gomja,” he said firmly.

The giff let out a big sigh. “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

Teldin pointed to the shade of a big elm. “Right now- over there.” Gomja nodded and with no more protesting hauled himself into the cool gloom, where he fixed up a simple bed, using a root for a pillow. Within a few minutes, the leaves overhead were shaking from the giffs deep snores.

His own worries momentarily put aside, Teldin leaned back against the tree. “Someone should stay on guard," he said to himself. He had barely finished the words before his own eyes shut and sleep again overtook him.

Teldin awoke the next morning after a restless night of dark images that haunted his sleep. The dreams had roused him from slumber and left him sleepless in the dark. Teldin had stared into the night sky, tracing the paths of Krynn’s two visible moons, silvery smooth and featureless Solinart and the freckled red orb that was Lunitari. The world’s third moon, Nuitari, was invisible to all but the sinister wizards of the Black Robes. Each time Teldin drifted off to sleep he was wakened again when the frightful dreams returned.

When the sun had risen, the dreams were mercifully banished. Only small memories remained, more sensations than images-those of a terrible pressure, then something tearing at his chest. Whatever he had dreamed, Teldin was thankful he did not fully remember it with the dawn.

Sitting up on his bed of leaves and moss, the farmer brushed the dirt from his clothes and threw the cloak back over his shoulders. He looked ruefully at his shirt. The brown linen was scorched and stained, marked by large smears of dirt and blood. His cotton trousers were little better, marked by tatters and unraveling threads. Unfortunately, nearly all his other clothes had been lost in the blaze. The cloak, curiously enough, wasn’t stained at all.

“Best to wash what I’ve got. Wouldn’t want my cousins to think me a beggar,” Teldin muttered.

At the stream edge, Teldin kicked off his shoes and pulled down his trousers. His ankles and shins were scratched and scraped, and there were several new large bruises on his calves and thighs. No wonder he ached with every step. “Explains the bad sleep,” Teldin muttered crossly as he got ready to bathe.

The cloak would have to come off before Teldin could remove his shirt, he reasoned. Up to now, he’d had no luck with the clasp, because it had jammed somehow. It was either that or it obviously didn’t work the way he thought. Sitting on a stone at the edge of the bank, Teldin pressed his chin down to his chest, trying to see the small silver chain that held the cloak around his neck. It was ornate workmanship. The fine links of chain ended in two small lion-headed clasps. At least, Teldin assumed they were lions. The silvery jaws gripped each other in an intricate death struggle, holding the chains shut.

Teldin looked for a catch that would open the jaws. He tried pressing the eyes and nose, squeezing at the jaws, and pushing on the top of the head. Nothing happened. Stumped, he tried turning the heads. Perhaps they needed to be twisted in just some certain way, he thought.

As Teldin fiddled with the clasp, a shadow fell over his shoulder. “Trouble, sir?” rumbled the giff, standing behind him.

Teldin gave a sour look over his shoulder at the giff towering over him. Apparently the creature could move quietly. Teldin cautiously shifted around to put himself at less of a disadvantage. “It’s this clasp. I can’t seem to get it open, he grumbled. “Your captain ever take this off?”

“She never wore it until the neogi appeared,” Gomja answered.

“Hmm?” It wasn’t the answer Teldin had expected. He gave a yank on the chains, trying to pull the clasp apart. “How so?’’

Trooper Gomja unwound his filthy sash. “I remember the captain went below when the neogi first appeared. She said she needed to get her advantage. She came back wearing the cloak.” The giff began unbuttoning his blouse.

“Advantage?” The more Teldin learned, the more puzzled he became.

“That is what she said.” The giff peeled off his uniform. “Besides, she must have been able to remove it. She gave it to you, didn’t she? You jammed it, sir.”

Teldin doubted that greatly. The clasp did not look broken. He stared at the little eyes of the animal heads. “Is this thing magical, maybe?”

Trooper Gomja looked up from pulling off his trousers. His ears twitched warily. “I don’t know. Never had much use for magical stuff,” he muttered. In a louder voice the giff continued, “Could be, I suppose. The captain seemed to think wearing it would help.” Trooper Gomja’s words were carefully chosen and guarded.

Teldin chewed at his lip, vexed with the problem. He tried wiggling a fang. Nothing happened. “Did she? What’s it supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. sir. The captain never told me,” came the matter-of-fact answer. Naked, but unseen by Teldin’s occupied eyes, Trooper Gomja waded into the center of the stream and gingerly sat down in the cold water.

“Well, did you see anything? Did your captain, or this cloak, do anything special?” Teldin stood, his shirttail flapping against his bare legs.

Gomja thought carefully. “Not that I saw, sir. It was just a cloak.” Scooping up a handful of sand from the bottom, the giff let the mud in it filter away. Trooper Gomja turned away and began scouring his blue-gray hide with clean grit.

Teldin was not sure whether the giff really did not know or was carefully picking his answers so as not to reveal too much. All the same, he was not getting any answers. “Well, this is wonderful!” the farmer burst out in frustration. “I’ve got you, a cloak that might be magical-but I don’t know with what powers-and a bunch of creatures ready to kill for it! And I can’t even take this damn cloak off!” Infuriated, he yanked at the chain, trying to snap the silver clasp, but the fastening held. " And I can’t even take a bath! "