Ник О'Донохью - Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

It was almost as though he were having someone else’s dreams.

Yawning now, stretching first his hind legs and then his front, he poked among the neatly piled acorn shells for some left-over tidbit. There was none.

He looked around the cottage, noted that the man was gone again, though his scent still clung to everything in the place, and then felt a sudden tightening of alarm: the cat prowled restlessly from window to door to window.

Not hungry again, are you?

Always, the cat murmured without looking around. You sleep a lot, squirrel. He’s off again, looking for the Wren.

The wren ... Yes, well, I’d like to find her myself. I think I might have some unfinished business with her.

The tabby did look around then, his green eyes alight with a certain careful curiosity. With the Wren? And what business might that be?

The squirrel wasn’t sure, and said so. Again he felt confused and uncomfortable. He remembered thinking the night before that the wren meant something to him. Now, though, when he tried to recall what it might be, he could not. His attempts to remember were as distressing as his dreams had been.

The cat padded silently across the room and leaped easily onto the table. When the squirrel scolded and skittered to the back of his cage, the tabby only yawned and smiled.

Easy, squirrel, easy . He eyed the squirrel closely, and this time the squirrel had the impression that he was not being considered as dinner. After a moment the tabby twitched his tail and murmured, I thought—maybe—but I suppose not. You’re just a squirrel, aren’t you ?

I–I guess so , responded the squirrel, Though sometimes I don’t quite feel like one. Maybe it’s just that I’m trapped in here, and I hate it. I should be grateful, I suppose, that there are bars between you and me, you being as hungry as you are all the time—oh! Well, I didn’t mean any offense, of course—Of course , the cat murmured.

I didn’t really, but you are a cat and I am a squirrel, and you cats do have a taste for squirrels from time to time and —

I am not a cat .

What? Well, of course you are. You’re a cat, I can assure you. And you’d have a hard time convincing the mice you terrorize around here that you aren’t .

I am not a cat. The tabby raised his head, and for the first time the squirrel noticed a small collar of braided leather clasped loosely around his neck. Do you see that ?

The collar? Very nice .

Aye , the cat sighed, It is, and so I thought when she gave it to me .

She? Who ?

The Wren .

The wren. The squirrel was beginning to have a headache. He closed his eyes and burrowed his nose into his front paws. Cat, I don’t know what you’re talking abou t.

No, like as not you don’t, being a squirrel .

And one who is too confused to worry about wrens and collars.

The tabby purred softly. What confuses you, little one ?

Dreams , the squirrel sighed.

Dreams ... The cat cocked his head. Dreams?

Yes, dreams. And squirrels aren’t supposed to dream. I know that. I know that because I’m a squirrel. But I still dream .

And yet , the cat said, you wear nothing .

The squirrel blew his cheeks out indignantly.

Of course not, or nothing but my skin. And that only because there’s a cage between you and me. What else am I supposed to wear ?

You’d be wearing something if you were more than a squirrel. The Wren wears a golden chain. I wear a collar. It keeps us, despite your form, what we are .

The squirrel’s headache was getting worse. I don’t understand.

I am a man. My name is Pytr. The wren is a woman whose name is, well, Wren . Pytr stretched lazily, then curled up on the table next to the cage. It was a long tale he had to tell, and he thought he might as well be comfortable. It had begun to snow again, and the day was waning. He was hungry and restless and worried. It helped a little to have someone to tell his story to, even if it was only a squirrel with a headache.

.. and so, the wren sighed, When I wouldn’t agree, when I refused to forsake Pytr for him, the mage laid an enchantment upon us both .

“Wren,” he said, and she fluttered her wings a little, a small shudder, “Wren you are called and wren you shall be.” and—and Pytr he made into a cat. Then I escaped. I flew far and came to Solace where I found the little kender who heard me and came to help. And now the mage has him, too.

Oh, is there no way you can help us?

On the strength of that tale, Wren had led them far and long, flying ahead and darting back, making sure the five did not deviate from the way. All of her small strength was for leading, for bringing help. She had none to talk and so, though Caramon wondered and Sturm speculated, Tanis and Raistlin agreed that greater detail must be garnered later when Wren had recouped her strength. Flint neither speculated nor wondered. He feared. And, since he did not like to show it, he hid his fear behind a spate of grumbling in which stone-headed kender played a large part. He fooled no one.

They followed her through all of the snowy day and as much of the night as they could. When camp was made, Wren dropped again to her perch on Sturm’s wrist. She was comfortable there, sensing a steadiness and kindness in the young man that gave her confidence. She only gripped him lightly and tucked her head beneath her stippled wing as though to rest.

“Wren,” Sturm said gently. “Wren?”

She looked up, weary with flying and fear, and cocked her head.

“What happened to the kender. Wren?”

The squirrel was unharmed when I saw him last Sturm frowned, puzzled. They heard Wren’s voice as a bird’s song with their ears, but in their minds they heard the soft, gentle voice of a woman. This, at times, could be confusing. But Sturm suddenly understood Wren’s reply when he heard Raistlin’s dry, whispered laugh.

“What else?” the young mage asked. “What else would you make a kender? This mage, whoever he may be, understands kender as well as any it seems.”

He’s caged the squirrel. It amuses him, I think, as it amused him to make a cat of Pytr and a bird of me.

Tanis winced at that. Flint growled low in protest. The soul of a kender caged or bound would wear the bruised colors of misery. “Who is this mage, Wren?”

Rieve is his name.

Raistlin lifted his head then, the way a man who scents smoke on the wind does. Tanis glanced at him. Caramon, silent till then, sat forward.

“Raist?” Caramon said, his hand moving reflexively to the hilt of his sword lying scabbarded at his feet. “You’ve heard of this mage?”

“He has an evil reputation, this Rieve. I’ve heard of him.” Raistlin smiled slowly then, humorlessly, as though he understood the question his twin hesitated to ask. “But you need have no fear, brother mine. Though I would be foolish indeed if I did not acknowledge that Rieve’s skills are greater than mine might be now, I think he has gone so far in his cruelty that he has given me a weapon against him.”

“A weapon?” Tanis asked.

Raistlin’s pale blue eyes glittered. Had there been light from the moons that night, its wash across the new snow would have been as cold. “A weapon. Or perhaps four.”

But though they pressed him, the young mage only settled back into the warmth of his cloak and did not answer further. He stared into the fire.

As Tanis set the night watches he wondered what weapons Raistlin might be forging out of the silence and the flame.

Pytr knew that the squirrel was in trouble. This was not, he realized, a squirrel after all. The dreams said that. But what he might be, Pytr did not know. He did know, however, that whatever the squirrel might have been before now would fade and vanish one day. With no piece of his real self to cling to, whoever he might have been, he would wake, dreamless, to find that he was indeed a squirrel. And likely, Pytr thought with a cold shudder, he would never know that there had been a time when he wasn’t.