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

“Tas? Tasslehoff Burrfoot!” we shout sternly, peering down the road. “Come back with our magical time-traveling device, you doorknob of a kender!”

“I’ll come out,” shouts Tas, “if you tell me some more stories!”

“Promise?” we ask, peering behind bushes and into ravines.

“Oh, yes. I promise!” says Tas cheerfully. “Just let me get comfortable.” There is a tremendous sound of rustling and tree-branch cracking. Then, “All right, I’m ready. Go ahead. I love stories, you know. Did I ever tell you about the time I saved Sturm’s life—”

Tas goes on to tell us the first story in this new anthology set in the world of Krynn. “ Snowsong,” by Nancy Varian Berberick, relates an early adventure of the companions. Sturm and Tanis, lost in a blizzard, have only one hope of being rescued—Tasslehoff Burrfoot!

“ The Wizard’s Spectacles,” by Morris Simon, is a “what-if” story. Tas always said he found the Glasses of Arcanist in the dwarven kingdom. But what if ...

A storyteller tells his tales not wisely but too well in “ The Storyteller,” by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel.

“There’s a lesson you could learn from that!” we yell to Tas, but he ignores us and goes on to relate “ A Shaggy Dog’s Tail,” by Danny Peary. It is a kender favorite, undoubtedly passed down from generation to generation although Tas, of course, swears that he knew everyone involved personally !

Next, we hear the true story of the demise of Lord Toede in “ Lord Toede’s Disastrous Hunt,” by Harold Bakst.

The minotaur race is the subject of “ Definitions of Honor,” by Rick Knaak. A young knight of Solamnia rides to the rescue of a village, only to discover that his enemy threatens more than his life.

“ Hearth Cat and Winter Wren,” by Nancy Varian Berberick, tells another of the Companions’ early adventures in which a young Raistlin uses his ingenuity to fight a powerful, evil wizard.

“All right, Tas!” we call. “Will you come out now? We really must be going!”

“Those were truly wonderful stories,” yells the kender shrilly from his hiding place. “But I want to hear more about Palin and his brothers. You remember. You told me the story last time about how Raistlin gave Palin his magic staff. What happens next?”

Settling ourselves down on a sun-warmed, comfortable boulder, we relate “ Wanna Bet?”, Palin’s very first adventure as a young mage. And certainly not the type of heroic quest the brothers expected!

Still sitting on the boulder, we are somewhat startled to be suddenly confronted by a gnome, who thrusts a manuscript at us. “Here, you! Tell the true story about the so-called Heroes of the Lance!” the gnome snarls and runs off. We are truly delighted to present for your enjoyment, therefore, “ Into the Heart of the Story,” a “treatise” by Michael Williams.

“Now, Tas!” we call threateningly.

“Just one more?” he pleads.

“All right, but this is the last!” we add severely. “ Dagger-Flight,” by Nick O’Donohoe, is a retelling of the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight as seen from a weird and deadly viewpoint—that of a sentient dagger!

“Tas, come out now!” we shout. “You promised.”

Silence.

“Tas?”

No answer.

Looking at each other, we smile, shrug, and continue on our way through Krynn. So much for kender promises!

Tanis let the hinged lid of the wood bin fall. Its hollow thud might have been the sound of a tomb’s closing. Hope, cherished for all the long hours of the trek up the mountain, fell abruptly dead. The wood bin was empty.

A brawling wind shrieked around the gaping walls of the crude shelter, whirling in through the doorless entry and the broken roof. The storm had caught Tanis and his friends unaware at midday. Far below, in the warmer valleys, the autumn had not yet withered under winter’s icy cloak. But here in the mountains autumn had suddenly become nothing more substantial than a memory. Esker was a day and a half’s journey behind them. Haven was a two-day trek ahead. Their only hope of weathering the storm had been this shelter, one of the few maintained by the folk of Esker and Haven as a sanctuary for storm-caught travelers. But now, with the blizzard raging harder, it seemed that their hope might be as hollow as the empty wood bin.

Behind him the half-elf could hear Tas poking around the bleak shelter, his bright kender spirit undaunted by the toll of the journey. There wasn’t much to find. Shards of crockery lay scattered around the hard-packed dirt floor. The one narrow table that had been the shelter’s only furnishing was now a heap of broken boards and splintered wood. After a moment Tanis heard the tuneless notes of the shepherd’s pipe that Tas had been trying to play since he came by it several weeks ago. The kender had never succeeded in coaxing anything from the shabby old instrument that didn’t sound like a goat in agony. But he tried, every chance he got, maintaining—every chance he got—that the pipe was enchanted. Tanis was certain that the pipe had as much likelihood of being enchanted as he had now of getting warm sometime soon.

“Oh, wonderful—the dreaded pipe,” Flint growled. “Tas! Not now!”

As though he hadn’t heard, Tas went on piping.

With a weary sigh Tanis turned to see Flint sitting on his pack, trying with cold-numbed hands to thaw the frozen snow from his beard. The old dwarf’s muttered curses were a fine testament to the sting of the ice’s freezing pull.

Only Sturm was silent. He leaned against the door jamb, staring out into the blizzard as though taking the measure of an opponent held, for a time, at bay.

“Sturm?”

The boy turned his back on the waning day. “No wood?”

“None.” Tanis shivered, and it had little to do with the cold. “Flint,” he called, “Tas, come here.”

Grumbling, Flint rose from his pack.

Tas reluctantly abandoned his pipe and made a curious foray past the empty wood bin. He’d gamboled through snow as high as his waist today, been hauled, laughing like some gleeful snow sprite, out of drifts so deep that only the pennon of his brown topknot marked the place where he’d sunk. Still his brown eyes were alight with questions in a face polished red by the bite of the wind.

“Tanis, there’s no wood in the bins,” he said. “Where do they keep it?”

“In the bins—when it’s here. There is none, Tas.”

“None? What do you suppose happened to it? Do you think the storm came up so suddenly that they didn’t have a chance to stock the bin? Or do you suppose they’re not stocking the shelters anymore? From the look of this place no one’s been here in a while. That would be a shame, wouldn’t it? It’s going to be a long, cold night without a fire.”

“Aye,” Flint growled. “Maybe not as long as you think.”

Behind him Tanis heard Sturm draw a short, sharp breath. If Tas had romped through the blizzard, Sturm had forged through with all the earnest determination he could muster. Each time Tas foundered, Sturm was right beside Tanis to pull him out. His innate chivalry kept him always ahead of Flint, blocking the wind’s icy sting, breaking a broader path than he might have for the old dwarf whose muttering and grumbling would never become a plea for assistance.