Dragons - Worlds Afire

Here Be Dragons { A Kender Tale } Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Tasslehoff Burrfoot was having a bad day. This was something new for the kender. Humans have bad days all the time. So do ogres and goblins and even elves, on occasion. Kender do not. Good days are a kender’s birthright, ranking right up there with lock picks (because the world would be a much friendlier place if everyone would simply share what they owned!) and wanderlust (because what’s the point of having a world if you don’t see as much of it as possible?) Thus, Tasslehoff was not prepared to handle a bad day. He simply did not know what to do. Which is what led him to the cave with the dragon.

But we’re getting ahead of the story.

The bad day started when Tasslehoff—all four-some feet of him, with his topknot of brown hair tastefully decorated with a sprightly sunflower, and wearing a green jacket and his favorite purple pants with the gold splotches—arrived at the walled city of Pigeon Falls, located west of the City of Barter near the River Swift in the foothills of the Highguard mountain range on the continent of Ansalon in the world of Krynn. The city of Pigeon Falls was small—it was noted on only one of the seven maps currently in Tasslehoff’s possession—but he paid it a visit because the name, Pigeon Falls, intrigued him.

Sitting beneath a tree outside the city walls, the kender looked the city over and thought that it was a shame Pigeon Falls wasn’t on every single one of his maps, for it deserved to be. The city was small, but prosperous. The stone wall that encircled and protected the city was tall and formidable and in good repair. Fertile farm lands surrounded the walls.

The War of the Lance (which had ended only a few years previous) and the deprivations caused by the Dark Queen’s dragons, who had devastated many cities in Abanasinia, had apparently left this small city unscathed.

Tasslehoff did not immediately enter Pigeon Falls, but sat at his ease beneath the tree, watching those who came and went. He noted that the guards at the gate stopped everyone who wanted to go inside the city walls. Tas was too far away to hear what they were saying, but he guessed from long experience that the guards were asking people in a friendly way what their business was in the city. The guards were jovial, teasing the young women who came driving geese to market, exchanging jests with the farmers on their carts, and bowing respectfully to wealthy merchants.

Tas had never seen such friendly gate guards and he thought he might try entering the city by the gate, something unusual for kender, who know from sad experience that even the friendliest guards turn immediately unfriendly when confronted by a kender. Why this was so was beyond Tasslehoff, though it had been explained to him many times by his dear old friend the dwarf, Flint Fireforge.

“It’s because yon can’t keep your hands out of other people’s pockets,” Flint told Tas grumpily.

Tas brought a picture of the old dwarf to mind. Shorter than the kender, but stockier in build, the dwarf would go all red in the face and his beard quiver and his eyes nearly disappear in the crinkles that came when he scrunched up his eyebrows to yell at the kender. Tas missed Flint a great deal.

“I never put my hand in someone else’s pocket in my life!” Tasslehoff protested indignantly.

“What’s this?” Flint held up his thumb.

“Your thumb, Flint,” said Tasslehoff, wondering why his friend was changing the subject.

“And what do I usually wear on this thumb?” the dwarf demanded angrily.

Tas hazarded a guess. “A golden ring?”

“And where is my golden ring?” Flint scowled at him.

“I don’t know, Flint,” said Tas. “Did you lose it?” He was concerned.

Flint reached out, took hold of Tasslehoff’s hand and thrust it in the kender’s face. He pointed. “What’s that?”

“My thumb,” said Tasslehoff, mystified.

“And what is on your thumb?”

Tas looked. He was amazed. He honestly had no recollection of having seen it before now. “A golden ring!”

The ring was too big for him and wobbled a bit. but he thought it looked well on him.

“It’s just like yours. Flint,” Tas said pleased.

“That’s because it is mine!” the irate dwarf bellowed.

“Is it?” Tas was pleased. “There! You thought you’d lost it and I found it for you. You must have dropped it.”

“Bosh!” Flint seized hold of the ring and snatched it off the kender’s thumb. He shook the ring under Tasslehoff’s nose. “This is why city guards with any sense never allow kender inside their gates!”

“Because we find things people have lost?” Tas was understandably confused.

“Because you can’t keep your hands out of people’s pockets!” Flint roared.

“The ring wasn’t in your pocket. Flint,” Tasslehoff felt called upon to point out. “It was on my thumb. Like I said, you must have dropped it…”

At that point Flint stomped off, the conversation ended, and Tasslehoff never did find out why gate guards were so narrow-minded.

Perhaps these guards would be different.

Hope springing eternal in Tas’s breast, he smartened himself up. He carefully combed the long topknot of hair that flowed down from the top of his head. He brushed off his bright purple trousers and straightened his green shirt and arranged all the bags and pouches that were slung over various parts of his body to their best advantage. Said bags and pouches contained all the kender’s worldly goods.

Tas had no idea what was in his pouches, for, like most kender, any object he “found” seemed the most wonderful and valuable object in the world (be it emerald ring or bird’s nest). something he would keep forever (a petrified frog), and he promptly forgot about it the moment he dropped it inside his pouch (how did that frog come to be petrified?) This made life a constant happy surprise for Tasslehoff, who was always finding the most marvelous and unexpected things every time he put his hand in his pouch.

Tugging up his orange stockings. Tas strolled down the hill and politely took his place at the end of the line. He soon found himself right up at the front, this clue to the fact that whenever the person in front of him glanced around and saw a kender standing behind him. that person immediately stepped out of line.

“You can go ahead,” the person would say, gesturing with one hand and holding the other hand tightly over whatever valuables he or she possessed.

“Why, thank you,” Tasslehoff would say, charmed, and he would move up a notch. He really liked the people of Pigeon Falls.

The next thing he knew, he was standing before the gate guard.

“Hullo,” said Tasslehoff Burrfoot cheerily, “I’ve come to Pigeon Falls to see the falling pigeons.”

The guard took one look at him. “No kender.”

“But I’ve never seen a falling pig—”

“No kender.”

“It’s just that—”

“No kender!” The guard emphasized his statement with a prod in the kender’s stomach from a very sharp spear.

“Ouch,” said Tasslehoff, and rubbing his maltreated stomach, he took his diminutive self sadly back to his tree.

It appeared that if he wanted to visit the town of Pigeon Falls, he would have to find some quiet and unobtrusive way to sneak inside.

A farmer and a hay cart provided the perfect opportunity. Tasslehoff could not only ride inside the town in comfort, he could take a little snooze at the same time. The kender gave the farmer a friendly wave, waited until the man had driven past him, then swiftly and nimbly ran down the hill, climbed up onto the cart, burrowed his way inside the fragrant hay, and closed his eyes. The cart rumbled over the bumpy road and the soothing motion lulled the kender to sleep.

The next thing Tas knew, he was being rudely stabbed in the backside by a pitch fork.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“Ah, ha!” said a nasty voice. “I thought I’d find you trying to sneak in!”

A large hand reached inside the mound of hay, clapped itself over Tasslehoff’s belt, dragged him out, and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground.

“No kender,” said the gate guard, glaring. He made a threatening gesture with the pitchfork. “We don’t like kender in Pigeon Falls! Be gone with you!”

“Ferret-face,” Tas muttered, though only to himself.

Plucking hay out of his hair, he went back to sit under his tree. He hoped the falling pigeons were worth all this trouble, but he was beginning to doubt it.

Seeing as how he wasn’t likely to get in through the gate, Tas decided to take a little stroll around the outside of the city wall to locate some other way he might enter. As luck would have it, he found a drainage pipe that penetrated the wall. The pipe carried off rain water that collected in the streets and dumped it (and whatever else it picked up) into the river.

The only drawback to this was that the drainage pipe was fitted with an iron grate. This proved only a minor impediment. Tasslehoff brought out his lock pick tools and, first making certain that none of the guards walking around on top of the wall could see him, he set to work. In moments, the iron grate lay on the ground and the kender was crawling up the drain pipe.

Emerging, he washed off the muck as best he could in a horse trough, then set off to the see the sights.

“Excuse me, Mistress,” said Tasslehoff, walking into a baker’s shop, “I’m here to see the falling pigeons—”

The woman gave a shriek of fury that reminded Tasslehoff of one of Lord Soth’s banshees. She (the woman, not the banshee) picked up a broom, ran around the counter, and began smacking Tas over the head.

“Be gone!” Thwack!

“But, ma’am, I’m only—”

“Be gone with you!” Thwack, thwack!

“It’s just that I’ve never seen—”

“We don’t like kender!” Thwack, thwack, slam—the slam being where the woman shoved him out the door and slammed it shut on him.

Her shrieks roused the populace. Once in the street, Tas was set upon by other shopkeepers wielding various instruments of destruction, from brooms to shovels to clubs and, in the case of the butcher, a dead chicken.

Tas was saved from the onslaught by the self-same gate guard, who had been on his way home to dinner when he heard the commotion. He picked up the kender by the seat of his britches and the collar of his shirt, hauled him to the front gate, and tossed him headlong out into the dusty road.

“No kender!” the guard bellowed.

Tasslehoff stood up, brushed himself off, wiped the dead chicken juice out of his eyes, and yelled, “I didn’t want to see your stupid pigeons fall anyway!”

He was walking along the road, looking at this and that and everything and nothing, and thinking that this was probably the worst day of his life, when his sharp kender eyes saw, off in the distance, what appeared to be a cave.

Caves draw kender like flames draw moths. The thought that there might be something living in the cave, or that there might be treasure in the cave, or both together, is irresistible to kender. Tas immediately turned his footsteps in that direction.

He discovered right off that he wasn’t the first person to do this. He came upon a trail scored with deep wagon ruts. The trail was old and unused, for weeds were growing in the wagon ruts. But Tas could see that heavily laden wagons had traveled back and forth across it for some time. The kender was excited. Not only was this a cave, it was a mine!

He imagined those wagons laden with gold or silver or maybe even iron ore to be turned into steel, then the most valuable commodity on Krynn. No wonder the town of Pigeon Falls had appeared to be so prosperous.

He continued following the trail, speculating on what might have happened to end the mining. Perhaps there had been a collapse or the mine had run out of ore, or…

And then there was the answer right in front of him on a wooden sign on a stake that had been hammered into the ground.

WARNING!

MINE CLOSED!

HERE BE DRAGONS!

“How exciting!” exclaimed Tasslehoff Burrfoot. His bad day had turned good. “This, is definitely better than pigeons.”

He kept going, picking up his pace.

Tasslehoff passed by several more signs on his way to the cave, all of them announcing that here be dragons. This was, of course, meant as a warning to stay away and would have, been taken as such by most people, but kender are not most people. Besides being extremely curious, kender are utterly fearless—a volatile combination, as anyone who has ever adventured with a kender (and managed to survive) will tell you.

Not that kender are foolhardy. Tasslehoff did not think of himself as jauntily walking into the jaws (literally) of death. His friend, Tanis Half-Elven, was always encouraging Tas to consider if a proposed action by the kender was “conducive to long life”. Tas did consider this, though he generally ended up doing what he wanted to anyway.

On this occasion, his thinking went something along these lines: “Yes, there’s a dragon, and dragons are extremely dangerous and not at all conducive to long life, but the dragon is probably out. I’ll just look over his treasure horde a bit and see if I come across anything interesting.” Or: “The dragon will probably be sleeping. They do sleep a lot, you know. I’ll just look over his treasure horde a bit and see if I come across anything interesting.”

There was always the possibility that the dragon might be in and he might be awake, but Tas considered the odds of that pretty low (one in three). And if the dragon was there and he was awake and in a bad mood and decided to eat the kender, well, there had never yet been a kender who died peacefully in his bed of old age. Tasslehoff had no intention of being the first.

As stated, Tas was not foolhardy. Arriving at the mouth of the cave, he did not immediately charge inside. He stopped to look about for signs of recent dragon activity—scales sparkling in the dirt, enormous footprints scorch marks on the walls, etc. He saw nothing. He cocked an ear and listened for sounds of a dragon. Dragons always had stentorian breathing (whatever a stentorian was; Tas thought it might be some sort of whistle). He listened for sounds of a large creature shuffling about, stomping its feet, lashing its tail. He heard nothing. He sniffed the air for the scent of brimstone, but he didn’t smell anything, either.

“I wonder if he moved?” Tasslehoff asked himself, disappointed. It seemed his bad day was going to continue. Everyone knew that when a dragon moved, he took his treasure with him.

The mouth of the cave was large and opened into an even larger chamber, so large that, peering up, Tas could not see the ceiling. Dusk was making the cave dusky and, the next thing Tas knew, a swarm of bats flew down around him, wheeling and dodging, flying off to find dinner. Tas ducked his head to keep the bats from mussing his topknot and thought glumly that here was another sign that the dragon had departed. No self-respecting dragon shares his cave with bats.

Tas almost turned back, but then decided that since he’d come all this way, he might as well explore a bit. After all, he could possibly come across the odd jewel-encrusted chalice the dragon had accidentally left behind. Or there might be a bugbear living here. While not as good as a dragon, a bugbear was better than nothing.

Tas continued on and his perseverance was rewarded. He made a wonderful discovery. Several very fine brass lanterns had been left at the opening of a mining shaft. The lanterns were neatly arranged on the cavern floor and they had apparently been here awhile, for they were covered with dust and bat droppings. Tas, who had neglected to bring a torch, was pleased. He did wonder, as he picked up one of the lanterns and examined it, who could have left such expensive lanterns here and why they hadn’t come back to retrieve them. The most obvious answer was that the owners had all died horribly in the mine, but Tas chose to take the optimistic view that they had been so loaded up with treasure they had no room in their wagon.

A rummage through several pouches produced not one tinderbox, but three. He also found several candles. He placed one in the lantern and had it lighted in no time. Lantern in hand, he continued on his way down the mine shaft.

The shaft sloped downhill at a steep angle. He occasionally passed carts that had once been loaded with ore, but which were now loaded with bat droppings.

He kept walking.

The shaft went on a for a long way without ever seeming to get to where it was going, and he had to admit that it did not appear to be leading to a dragon or even a bugbear. Tas stopped every so often to look and listen and sniff and smell nothing. He was starting to grow discouraged and bored and was rummaging in his pouch for something to eat, when his light glinted off metal.

Tas found a piece of armor—a greave or some such thing—that had been discarded, probably due to a broken strap. The armor was covered in dust. Tas picked it up and brushed it off. Like the lanterns, the piece of armor was of fine quality. Tas stuffed it in one of his pouches and kept going. Here was a puzzle.

Armor meant knights. Knights traipsing about an abandoned mine meant they were likely hunting the dragon. But the dragon-hunting knights had apparently not slain the dragon, otherwise they would have removed the signs warning HERE BE DRAGONS. (Or at least put up a sign that said HERE NOT BE DRAGONS.) The logical conclusion was that the dragon had been the winner. But, in that case, where was the dragon? Hence, the puzzle.

Tas continued going down the mine shaft. The candle burned so low he had to replace it, and still he kept going. Then, about half way through the next candle, the shaft made a sharp turn and suddenly deposited Tasslehoff in a huge chamber that was amazingly (considering it was a couple of miles underground) brightly lit.

Tasslehoff almost dropped his lantern and stared, astonished. He was more astonished than he’d ever been in his life and that was saying something, considering that he’d traveled back in time with Caramon, and visited the Abyss with the Dark Queen and taken a flying citadel out for a spin, and done a lot of other truly astonishing things. He’d never seen anything like this, however.

The floor of the chamber was covered with knights—all of them dead. Tas did not have to look twice to see they were dead, for the knights were nothing but steel and bone. Some of the dead knights had lances or spears in their bony hands. Others had swords. Tas didn’t know what had killed them, but he figured it was probably the dragon—the large blue dragon that was glaring down on him from high up above him.

The very fierce large blue dragon.

“Hullo, up there,” said Tasslehoff and he gave a little gulp. He wasn’t afraid, mind you. Just startled.

The dragon didn’t answer. Which was rude. Even for a dragon.

Tas stared up at it and realized suddenly that it was a very fierce looking blue dragon who wasn’t moving. His blue wings were outspread and his jaws open so that his fangs and sharp teeth gleamed in the light. His enormous claws were flexed, ready to rip apart his foe. His blue scales glinted as he was about to dive. But he wasn’t diving or biting or ripping. The dragon was just hanging there in mid air, in mid snarl, glaring down at Tasslehoff with bright gleaming eyes. Directly underneath the dragon was the dragon’s treasure, all in a huge mound on the floor, glittering and shining and sparkling in the light.

“I wonder how he does that,” Tasslehoff said, craning his neck to view the dragon.

He waited several moments to see if the dragon would leap or flap or dive or blast lightning bolts at him or do something.

The dragon continued to just hang there, suspended, glaring at him.

Tasslehoff’s neck started to get a crick in it. He lowered his head and rubbed his neck, and right there before him was the answer to one of his questions—the source of the bright light.

A dead wizard.

The wizards corpse, clad in white robes that must have once been quite sumptuous, but which were now moth- and mouse-eaten (not to mention the blood stains), was propped up against a wall. In the dead hand was a staff and the bright light was beaming from a large crystal atop the staff.

Tasslehoff felt a tingling in his fingertips that spread to his hands and all the way up his arms and into his head. That magical staff with its magical light was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. Caramon’s twin brother Raistlin had owned a magical staff. Tasslehoff had always longed to examine Raistlin’s staff, but the wizard had threatened to turn him into a cricket and feed him to a frog if he’d so much as touched his pinky finger to it. And while being a cricket might be interesting, being fed to a frog didn’t hold much appeal, and so between that and the fact that Raistlin never let the staff out of his sight, Tas had never had a chance to study it.

Here was his opportunity.

Tasslehoff didn’t think this wizard would mind if he touched the staff, since the wizard was pretty much past the point of minding anything.

Ignoring the dragon’s treasure (after all, if you’ve seen one diamond the size of your fist, you’ve seen them all), Tas hurried over to look at the staff.

The light shining from the crystal was so bright that Tas had to squint to look at it. He reached out his hand, wrapped his fingers around the smooth wooden staff, and carefully and gently lifted it out of the wizards bony grasp.

At that moment, a great many things happened.

First, the light on top of the staff went out.

Second, there came an enormous crash as of something extremely heavy falling from a great height.

Third, he heard silence, followed by a pain-filled groan, followed by an angry snarl.

“Oops,” said Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

Now, those who have adventured in company with a kender will tell you that “oops” is the single most terrible word ever heard coming from a kender’s lips. (For many, it’s the last word they ever hear.) “Oops” means the kender has made a mistake. And though kender are very small people, they generally make very large mistakes.

This was one of them.

It did occur to Tasslehoff the moment he touched the staff that perhaps the staff’s magic was responsible for keeping the dragon suspended in mid-air and that by touching the staff he would disrupt the spell. Since he was touching the staff at the time, this notion came to him too late to do any good.

And, as it turned out, his notion was right. Touching the staff disrupted the spell and freed the dragon, who came crashing down to the ground, right on top of his treasure horde.

Tasslehoff thought fast.

“Oh, hullo, there!” he said cheerily, peering into the darkness and locating the dragon. “It’s me. Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Hero of the Lance.” He mentioned this in modest tones, then added quickly, “I saved you from the evil wizard who had put a spell on you. No need to thank me. I’ll just be going now. Good-bye!”

Tas’s lantern was by the opening of the chamber where he’d almost dropped it. Putting down the staff, so that the dragon wouldn’t mistake him for a wizard, Tasslehoff starting walking rapidly toward the exit.

An enormous blue-scaled paw slammed down on the floor right in front of him.

“Not so fast,” snarled the dragon.

Tas squinched shut his eyes, thinking he was going to be eaten. Then, figuring if he was going to be eaten by a dragon, that was a sight he wouldn’t want to miss, he opened his eyes again.

The dragon did not appear as though about to eat him. Instead, the dragon lowered his massive head until he was only a few feet from Tas and looked at him straight in the eye. The dragon’s own eyes glinted in the light of Tas’s lantern.

The dragon asked a most unexpected question.

“Um… do you know me?” The dragon winced, as though in pain.

“I beg your pardon?” said Tasslehoff, not sure if this was a trick question. Everyone knew that dragons sometimes asked trick questions that you had to answer correctly if you wanted to keep from being eaten. “I’m not sure exactly what you mean.”

“You said you saved me from a wizard,” the dragon continued gruffly. He sounded embarrassed. “That implies that you and I have some sort of relationship…”

Now the only relationship that came to Tas’s mind was that of “eater” and “eatee”, but he wisely did not mention this.

“I’m sorry,” said Tas. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Perhaps if you could explain it to me.”

As he was speaking, the kender tried to sidle his way around the enormous paw.

The dragon rumbled in his blue chest and shifted about uncomfortably on top of the pile of treasure. “It’s just that… I must have hit my head when I fell, because… it’s the damndest thing… but I can’t seem to recall my own name.”

“You can’t?” Tasslehoff asked, so amazed he came to a stop.

“No, nothing.” The dragon sounded glum. “And I’ve got a beastly headache. Do you happen to know… uh… my name?”

“George,” said Tasslehoff promptly. George had always been one of his favorite names and so few people were called George nowadays.

“George,” the dragon repeated. “Are you sure? George doesn’t seem the right sort of name for a dragon.”

“Oh.” Tas was disappointed. “You know you’re a dragon, do you?”

“Well, of course!” The dragon snapped. “I may have a large bump on my head, but I’m not an idiot. A gully dwarf could see that I’m a dragon!”

Tas had to admit that the wings, the tail, the fangs, and the blue scales did sort of give that away.

“And you are a kender,” the dragon continued. He added in a dour voice, “I seem to recall that as a rule I don’t like kender.”

“That was until you met me,” said Tasslehoff brightly. He had his plan all worked out now. “You see, we’re partners. Partners in crime. We’re thieves.”

“Thieves?” the dragon repeated, astounded.

“Two of the greatest thieves Krynn has ever known,” said Tas, who was now enjoying himself. He sat down on at large chest of gold bars and made himself comfortable. “You and I are notorious throughout Ansalon. Why”—he waved his hand—“just look at the loot we’ve accumulated!”

“This is… ours?” The dragon was awed. He stared around at the golden plates and the chests of steel coins and the jeweled crowns and diadems and scepters covered with pearls and lots of other objects too fabulous and numerous to be described.

“Yes, all ours,” Tas replied proudly.

“I’m a thief,” the dragon said, mulling this over. “I pick locks and sneak into houses—”

“You’re the second-story man,” Tas explained. “You sneak into the windows on the second story.”

“I appear be rather large to do that,” the dragon countered.

“But that’s the very reason why! I’m too short to be the second-story man, so I’m the first-story man. I pick the locks on the front door. You’re tall, so you crawl in the windows. You’re ever so stealthy.”

“I am?” The dragon was skeptical. “Stealthy?”

“The most stealthy dragon in Krynn.”

The dragon appeared to think about this, but thinking evidently caused him pain, for he winced again. He glanced about at the dead knights. “So, what happened here? Looks like some sort of battle took place.”

“Oh, it was very exciting! We were down here in our cave, taking inventory, when we were rudely set upon by these knights and their wizard,” Tas said. “We fought valiantly, especially myself. Did I tell you I was a Hero of the Lance? Anyway, the wizard cast a spell on you that caused you to be suspended from the ceiling. I wrestled with him and managed to take away his staff, and I freed you and here we are. Now, as I was just on my way out, I can go fetch something for that headache of yours.”

Tas started to edge his way toward the exit once more.

“Wait!” The dragon shifted his paw, blocking Tas’s escape route. He peered intently at the corpses. “These knights have been dead a long time. So has the wizard. A long, long time.”

Tas looked at one of the corpses holding a sword in its bony hand and was forced to concede that the dragon had a point. The dragon’s eyes narrowed. Clearly, he was starting to grow suspicious.

“Undead!” exclaimed Tas, inspired. “Skeletal warriors. Led by a skeletal wizard. It was a desperate battle against the forces of the evil god of Undeath, Chemosh, but we were victorious.”

Tas mopped his brow with his shirt sleeve. All this thinking was starting to wear on him.

“You can see where you blasted the undead with your lightning breath,” Tas pointed out, indicating scorch marks on the floor and walls. “And here’s where you back-stabbed a knight. He never knew what hit him.”

“But what would undead want with treasure?” the dragon asked.

Tas was beginning to believe being eaten would be less trouble. “Look, George, I wasn’t going to tell you this. I didn’t want to worry you. But, the truth is, the undead were sent to assassinate us. We have a rival—Ragar the Ugly.”

Admittedly the name didn’t sound all that impressive, but Tas was fast running out of inspiration.

“Ragar sent these undead to finish us off.”

“Where is this Ragar the Ugly?” the dragon demanded grimly. “We should deal with him.”

“He’s back in his hideout—Castle Ugly. It’s a really long way from here and, frankly, you’re not up to it, George. Really, you’re not. I’m going to go out to get a soothing poultice for you to put on your head. Doesn’t that sound nice? Tomorrow we’ll deal with Ragar.”

“Soothing poultice,” the dragon reflected. “Yes, that does sound good. Something cooling.”

“You just lie down and rest a bit. Take it easy. There’s a city not far from here. I’ll just pop into the apothecary, borrow… er… steal a poultice, and be right back.”

“I think I will rest,” said the dragon and he brushed aside a skeleton or two to clear a space. “Don’t be gone long… Er, forgive me, friend, but what is your name?”

“Igor,” said Tasslehoff, another of his favorite names. “Igor the Merciless.” He was actually quite pleased by his new name.

“Don’t be gone long, Igor,” said the dragon, and he closed his eyes and winced as he gingerly laid his massive head down on the treasure pile.

Tas darted over to his lantern, picked it up, and glanced back at the dragon. The creature did truly have a very nasty swelling, about the size of a house, on its head. The dragon gave a groan and burrowed down more comfortably into the treasure.

Tas waited no longer. He dashed out of the chamber and into the corridor and never stopped until he was standing, puffing, by one of the signs that said HERE BE DRAGONS.

“A truer word was never spoken,” said Tasslehoff, and he gave the sign a pat.

Being a little weary from all that hard thinking, he decided that what he really needed was a good sleep in a good bed in a good inn. He made his way beneath the starlit sky—he guessed it must be about the middle of the night—and walked back to the town of Pigeon Falls.

As good fortune would have it, he came across a small gate in the wall that he’d missed the first time around. The gate led out to the path that went to the river. His lock pick tools were never far from hand and Tasslehoff had the small gate open in seconds.

He found an inn that looked nice, went around back, jimmied open a window and let himself in (so as not wake up the owner).

Once inside, he absent-mindedly pocketed several pieces of cutlery that were lying about on a table, rummaged around in a few drawers, went through the belongings of the slumbering guests, and slipped a few interesting items into his pouches. Then, yawning, he found a bed that wasn’t being used, tucked himself in, said his prayers, and closed his eyes.

“I’d make a really great thief,” Igor the Merciless reflected as he was drifting off. “It’s a good thing for society that I’m a hero.”

The next thing Tasslehoff knew, a noise as of a ton of bricks falling down, accompanied by a terrified scream, hoisted him right out of his bed. The tumbling bricks and the scream were followed by a lot more screams and, added to that, came shouts and bellowings, the ringing of bells and blowing of horns and beating of drums.

“It can’t be a parade,” said Tas groggily. “It’s the middle of the night.”

The inhabitants of the inn were running about in their night clothes, peering out the window and demanding to know what in the Abyss was going on.

“Dragon!” someone yelled from outside. Torch lights flared. “A blue dragon is attacking the city!”

“Oops,” said Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

Of course, it could be some other blue dragon who just happened to be wandering by, but he had the sinking feeling it wasn’t. One of the guests, a mercenary warrior, was raving that he couldn’t find his sword. It had been right on the floor beside him as he lay sleeping and now it was gone.

“Here it is,” said Tasslehoff, handing it over. “You dropped it.”

The warrior glared at him, snatched up his sword—never saying thank you—and raced out of the inn. The other guests decided to remain inside the inn, mostly crawling under the beds and heavy articles of furniture. The owner, dashing off to the wine cellar to make certain the dragon didn’t get into the best wine, caught a glimpse of Tas, skidded to a halt, and came dashing back.

“What is a filth of a kender doing in my inn?” the owner roared. “What is a filth of a kender doing in my city?”

Outside, Tasslehoff could hear the shouts and the screams and bellowings growing louder and, over that, the call to arms.

Tasslehoff drew himself up straight and tall. He fixed the inn’s owner with a steely eye. “I’m dealing with the dragon,” he said.

And he walked resolutely and courageously out into the street.

Sure enough, there was George. The dragon’s blue scales showed up quite well in the light of hundreds of torches. The dragon’s legs squashed flat one section of the town wall. His front claw thrust clear through a wall on the second floor of a large house, smashing woodwork and plaster and glass. His tail knocked over a guard tower, so that the tower hung at a precarious angle, with the guards jumping for their lives.

Roused by the alarm, the citizens of Pigeon Falls were armed for battle with weapons of all varieties, from swords to pitchforks to rolling pins. Fortunately, battle had not yet been joined. Although the captain of the town militia was exhorting his men to charge, most were overcome by dragonfear and were hiding behind buildings, clutching their weapons in shaking hands, and staring open-mouthed and white-faced at the dragon.

The dragon, meanwhile, had just managed to extricate his claw from the second story of the house—bringing down the roof as he did so—and was staring about in growing rage.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot heaved a sigh. He shoved and wriggled his way through the terror-stricken crowd and came to stand alone in the middle of the town square.

The crowd went “oooh” and “aaah,” and the people fell all over themselves backing up to give the kender more room. Someone did mutter, “How did a kender get into town?” but several voices shushed him.

The dragon looked down accusingly at Tasslehoff.

“You didn’t come back.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tas meekly. “I fell asleep. It was a tiring battle. All those skeletal warriors… and all.”

He wasn’t feeling very chipper. It was obvious that the dragon had recovered somewhat and was having second, third, and probably fourth thoughts about Tasslehoff’s story. There is no telling what would have happened if, at that moment, some fool hadn’t fired off one of the catapults. A largish rock sailed through the air and hit the dragon smack in the middle of its forehead.

The dragon reeled and, in that moment, remembered everything.

Thunderbolt (the dragon’s real name) remembered the knights (who had been quite alive at the time) and that blasted white robed wizard invading his snug cave. He recalled the battle and how he’d breathed his deadly lightning breath on the knights and picked them up in his jaws and flung them back to the ground. He recalled gobs of blood and the sweet screams of the dying and the lovely sound of breaking bones. Finally, he recalled the immense satisfaction he felt as skewered that wizard in the gut with a claw. The wizard slumped down the wall. He was bleeding profusely, but he was still conscious, blast him, and he was able to get off a last magic spell—waving his staff and chanting.

Thunderbolt remembered being blinded by white light and then suddenly everything—including time—ground to a halt. When the dragon could see again, he discovered that he was hanging in mid-air, wings extended, jaws open, claws stretched to kill, and he was stuck this way. Suspended, held prisoner in time and space. And the wizard who had cast the foul spell died before he could uncast it.

Years passed. Thunderbolt didn’t know how many. He was frozen in his cave and he couldn’t get free. He might have to hang this way for all eternity. He had nearly given up hope of ever being found when the kender had appeared inside his chamber.

This kender. The one standing right in front of him. The kender who had touched the wizards staff and freed the dragon.

True, Thunderbolt knew, the kender had not done so on purpose. The kender had freed him accidentally. Then he’d lied to the dragon, making up that folderol about being a thief, a kender tale that had led the dazed and headachy and befuddled dragon to try his hand at thieving, with the result that he was now in peril of his life, not to mention looking utterly ridiculous.

Tasslehoff saw the dragon blink with pain. Then the dragon’s eyes opened wide and then narrowed to slits and then the large blue dragon glared down at the kender.

Tas realized in that moment that the dragon’s amnesia was cured. The dragon remembered everything. Tas knew this by the glint in the dragon’s now focused eyes and the barring of his fangs.

“Well, it’s been a good life,” Tasslehoff said to himself, as he waited to be eaten. “Too bad it couldn’t have lasted longer, but that’s the way Otik’s spiced potatoes crumble.”

The dragon lifted a powerful claw…

… and handed Tas a jeweled necklace.

“I found this,” said the dragon. “You must have dropped it.”

Tasslehoff was struck speechless for the first, last, and only time in his life that he could recall at this particular moment. He bent down and picked up the necklace.

“I’ll just be leaving now,” said the dragon.

He shifted his enormous body around, completing the ruin of the guard tower and destroying a few more sections of wall as he attempted to extricate himself. He walked off.

“Cease fire!” the captain of the militia yelled, though no one had fired or was about to fire, except the man at the catapult and, as it turned out, he’d fainted from terror and fallen on top of the triggering mechanism.

Thus ended the attack of the blue dragon on the city of Pigeon Falls.

Thunderbolt returned to his cave. On his way, he smashed every one of the HERE BE DRAGONS signs. By Takhisis, no wonder those confounded knights had discovered him! Might as well list him in the tourist guides!

As he returned to his comfortable cave, Thunderbolt reflected on his actions. He could have eaten the kender, should have eaten the kender. But the kender had saved him from that cruel spell and, besides, Thunderbolt was forced to admit, he had always kind of liked the name George.

So few dragons were named George nowadays.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot was now not only a Hero of the Lance, he was also the Hero of Pigeon Falls. People crowded around him, slapping him on the back. They hoisted him onto their shoulders and carried him through the streets of town. They gave him the key to the city, which he really didn’t need, due to the lock picks, and threw a banquet in his honor.

He was urged to make a speech, which he did.

“Thank you,” he said, “but really all I wanted was to see the pigeons fall.”

Then it was explained to him that it was water falls not pigeon falls that gave the town its name. The falls were named for the pigeons, which Tas thought was pretty lame. He didn’t say so, however. Heroes are always polite.

After his speech, he was hugged by the Lord Mayor’s wife, who was a large-bosomed, stout woman. It was at this point that Tasslehoff remembered there were other cities to see, other caves to visit, other dragons to outwit.

So Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Hero of the Lance and of Pigeon Falls, left this part of Krynn, never to return there again.

If he had, he would have seen new signs posted all around the city—just in case any wandering dragons happened to be passing by.

WARNING TO DRAGONS!

HERE BE KENDER!

And from that day to this, kender have always been welcome in Pigeon Falls.