Lord Toede

Chapter 21

Toede awoke with a ringing that started at the base of his neck and radiated throughout his entire form, ending in (what he imagined were) vibrating fingertips.

He expected to be back on the stream bank, having set a new record for dying. Instead, he was inside a suspiciously familiar dwelling, made of hooped wood and brush in the kender style. He blinked his eyes, trying to focus.

"Hello, Toede," said a small figure across the room. "You really are Toede, aren't you? The one and true Toede."

Toede squinted, normal vision returning. The figure was familiar, child-sized, and dressed in fringed leather. Her face was more tightly drawn and serious than before, and the soft russet ringlets of her hair had been replaced by a short, rust-colored down that snugly wrapped her skull.

"Taywin," he muttered. "Kronin's daughter. The berry picker. The kender poet. You've changed your look." He couldn't help but frown in disapproval, though to his hobgoblin sensibilities anything was an improvement over her previous appearance.

Taywin Kroninsdau passed a hand over her scalp. "It is you," she hissed, then in a more normal voice added, "You saved my life, a year ago."

"I was…" Toede paused. If she had wanted simple vengeance, she would have had him killed immediately. Try honesty, he thought, but temper it with wisdom.

"I was just trying to escape," said Toede, raising his eyebrows to indicate his sincerity. "Saving you was a happy by-product."

"Yes," said Taywin, her face furrowing. "It was that awful Groag's idea, wasn't it?"

Now comes the wisdom part. Toede nodded as if in agreement, but added, "Groag's involvement is immaterial to my own actions. One must take responsibility for one's own deeds."

"Ah yes," nodded Taywin. "Be truthful in thy trysts and reap the bounty of thy trust," she said, smiling at him.

Toede wondered if her poetry had taken a turn for the worse. That would explain the haircut. He shook his head, waved his hand, and said, "Whatever. Where am I?"

"In our camp," said Taywin, ignoring his confusion. "We're having a major moot this evening, and Daddy's going to have to decide if we're going to join the Allied Rebellion or not. You'll be there, of course."

"Of course," said Toede, already checking the exits and wondering how many guards must be posted outside. They hadn't chained him up, which was a good sign, but this talk of a rebellion was bad. Perhaps he could learn more, then head for the hills until he ascertained whoever it was they were rebelling against.

"This revel alliance…" began Toede.

"Rebel," corrected Taywin. "If s the Allied Rebellion."

"… is a new thing," finished Toede. "Assume I'm unaware of what has transpired since we last met. Pretend I'm ignorant in all this."

"I come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh." She was quoting again, and something tickled the back of Toede's mind. "The rebellion got its start about five months ago, after the destruction of most of Flotsam by a magical creature of great power," she said.

"His name was Jugger," muttered Toede. "At least that was the name you or I could pronounce."

Taywin's eye lit up in childlike glee. "So you were there! Both sides have claimed so!"

Toede shrugged and said, "For a little while I was. But what…" Toede's question was interrupted by a knock at the door, and a tall, flame-haired human who was kneeling down to peer inside.

"Is our guest awake?" said Bunniswot, looking tanner and (if possible) thinner than he did at his last meeting with Toede.

"I was just telling him the tale of the rebellion," Taywin said brightly. "He was there, as you said, at the helm of the mighty hammer-creature… What did you say its name was?"

"Jugger," said Toede, regarding Bunniswot as if the scholar had just popped out of a cake. "I was unaware you two knew each other," he said, eyes wide, adding to himself, But not horribly surprised, given that you're both a few boulders short of an avalanche.

Taywin shot a concerned look at Bunniswot. "And our other guest, is he…?"

Bunniswot sighed. "Out spreading the good word, again. I last saw him trying to win over your father's guards."

Taywin rose and stomped her small feet. "I asked him to stop doing that. Daddy will get the wrong idea about the movement, and he'll never help us. I'll go get him."

Bunniswot nodded. "Good idea, but take Miles with you." At the sound of his name, a vaguely familiar kender guard popped his head in the hut. He nodded at Taywin, then stared at Toede and smiled. It was a creepy smile,

made all the more so by the fact that every second tooth, top and bottom, was missing.

The berry-picking guard, Toede realized, and he suddenly understood the force of the blow on the back of his own head. Toede touched the lump there and smiled back venomously. Whatever else, this matter was far from over.

They locked glares for a moment, then Taywin breezed between them. She curtsied before Bunniswot, and said, "Dance upon the water lilies, Scholar Bunniswot."

Bunniswot returned the benediction. "Dance upon the water lilies, Taywin Kroninsdau."

The two kender disappeared, and Bunniswot, still hunched over, shuffled over to where Taywin had been seated and sat down, stretching his long legs.

Bunniswot managed a tired smile. "So, how are you feeling? When Miles and Taywin dragged you in, I was afraid they were too rough on you."

Toede shrugged off the concern and said levelly. "/ come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh, eh?"

Bunniswot reddened and coughed. "Ah, that," he said, gulping. "You know, I'm glad to have this time alone with you, so we can sort this out."

"It took me a quote or two to make the connection," said Toede with a smile. "Thaf s what all this lily-dancing and trusting trysts is all about, isn't it? The ogre pornography."

"Well, yes and no," said Bunniswot. "And it's ur-ogre, and erotica."

"What does 'yes and no' mean?" said Toede.

Bunniswot spelled it out. "After Renders disappeared and the gnolls were defeated, I had trouble getting my… er, findings, published. There was neither funding nor support, and frankly, the material did have a… risque… nature to it."

"So…?"

"So I had it published myself," said Bunniswot. "Initial release of twenty handwritten copies. Second release of a hundred. Working on a third now."

"I know there's something coming that I won't like," said Toede, reducing his eyes to slits. "Why not tell me now and get it over with?"

"I didn't publish it as historical documentation. No one in academia would take something like this seriously." Bunniswot smiled weakly.

"And instead…?" continued Toede. Bunniswot looked at the floor, speaking very fast. "I said it was the political and scholarly advice of one of the most misunderstood warrior-leaders of our time. The not-so-late Highmaster Toede." "What?"

"It's gotten very good reviews," put the scholar in quickly. "The Tower of High Sorcery alone has asked for three copies. We're talking about reprinting it for the libraries of Sancrist."

"You signed my name to your ogre pornography?" hissed Toede, keeping his volume down as best he could. "Well, I didn't call it pornography," replied Bunniswot with a 'what-kind-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for' tone to his voice.

Toede felt his face grow red. "What. Did. You. Call. It?" He bit off each word.

"Political and social allegory, concentrating on both the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and the relationships between rulers and other rulers," said Bunniswot.

"So all the talk about sex is…?" Toede felt a mounting pressure building behind his eyes.

"Not about sex at all," Bunniswot said, nodding, "unless you have a filthy mind. And since no one admits to having a filthy mind, it's okay."

"Wonderful," muttered Toede. "And I take it our kender poetess has read the book."

"She can quote it chapter and verse," said Bunniswot.

"If s the text book for the Allied Rebellion."

Toede did not know if he was supposed to laugh or ay. "So I'm credited with a book I didn't write, that is about sex although it isn't, and that is being used by a rebellion that has yet to rebel?"

Bunniswot tilted his head slightly, as if considering Toede's argument. "Good summary," he said at length.

Toede pressed his hands to his temples. "Just bloody wonderful. Okay, what else can go wrong?"

"We're back!" said Taywin, bouncing into the hut.

She was followed by a large, angry-looking human dressed in black. Toede's eyes widened. His shirt was open to reveal a large T that had been carved into his chest.

The assassin from the Jetties towered over Toede. Even hunched over, his shoulders grazed the ceiling of the hut. The assassin's eyes glowed like hot embers with barely contained emotion. At his hip was a great sword in a rune-carved scabbard.

Toede felt his throat go dry, his tongue turn to sandpaper. Toede choked out, "Dance on the lilies, warrior."

The assassin let out a great cry, and Toede backed up. As it was, he was pressed flat against the wall of the hut when the human drew his sword and collapsed to his knees, presenting it, hilt-first, to the hobgoblin.

"My life is yours, O sage leader!" said the warrior, his eyes focused on Toede's toes.

Toede pried himself from the side of the wall with as much decorum as he could muster. He took the sword (the same one, he noted, that had previously been used in combat against Groag) from the warrior's hands, and strongly considered ramming it right back into the human's T-inscribed chest. However, as this might lead to further complications with the kender, (particularly the guard with the club), he instead gently touched the warrior with it on the shoulder, his mind scrambling for something suitable to say for the occasion.

"Your life is yours to live," mumbled Toede. "Arise, good Sir… In all the previous excitement I never learned your name?"

"Rogate, most sage leader," muttered the warrior, eyes bent to the floor.

"Arise, Sir Rogate," said Toede. "You have pledged your quest with my own." Whatever the heck that might be, he added to himself.

Rogate tottered to his feet, swaying slightly, and declaimed to the others, "I serve the mighty Toede, and have been accepted and forgiven! Behold, the first of the Toedaic Knights!"

Bunniswot and Taywin applauded politely. Miles, the kender guard, grimaced and left to return to his post.

"Now, if everyone will please sit down," said Toede. "Perhaps someone would like to tell me exactly what is going on."

Rogate drew himself up to his full height, or at least as much height as the hut permitted. "But you know all, most puissant and sage of wonders!"

Toede motioned for Rogate to sit, saying softly, "I come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh." He made a mental note to get a few more quotes under his belt.

Rogate's face brightened, then he quietly sat down. "Perhaps, then, it is best that I begin, my wondrous leader, for I have been in Flotsam for most of the past year, and have seen what has transpired."

Toede nodded. Rogate continued, "I awoke in the Jetties with my wounds healed, the innkeep declaring that you had considered taking my life, but spared me instead. In that moment I realized your true mercy and felt ashamed.

"I did not return to my post that night, or ever again. I know now that I was a dupe of the false creatures known as the Water Prophet and Gildentongue. When Gilden-tongue's dining habits were revealed to the masses I was angered, but more concerned when it turned out that Hopsloth's own priests chose to rule in the same.highhanded fashion.

"I sought out one who I believed would tell me what had happened to you, and found that unworthy creature, Groag." Rogate looked as though he was about to spit. "He helped me not, and soon afterward he left the city himself, to further his own ambitions."

Toede slid a look in Bunniswot's direction, but the scholar declined to mention his tenure of eating Groag's cooking. Instead, he stared blankly out the hut door.

Rogate continued. "I knew that retribution most divine was upon us, and began to preach, to warn others of your next return. The priests of Hopsloth crushed all dissent, and many early martyrs disappeared without trace." Rogate lowered his eyes in silence.

"I was correct, and you did return, on the back of a great metal elephant that spoke in a mathematical tongue!

"You were magnificent, my sage leader!" beamed Rogate.

"You cut down the followers and guards of Hopsloth right and left, charged his fortress-lair, and dispatched him forthwith. Some say you died in the struggle, but I believed that you passed only after you had removed that foul stench from our land. It was then I founded my simple Faith-of-Toede-Returned.

"And yet," added Rogate quickly, "the foulness reappeared. In the turmoil following your triumph against Hopsloth, a dark being returned to Flotsam, the obscenity known as Groag."

Another silence hung in the air for a brief ice age. Toede prompted, "And then…?" But the newly christened Toedaic Knight sat, shaking his head.

"It seems that Groag captured Rogate's audience,"

Bunniswot put in.

"Kidnapped!" roared Rogate. "Stole their minds and souls! Filled then with false fears and threats and had himself declared Lord of Flotsam, chosen by powers beyond our ken! It was then that the darkness truly fell, and I was forced to leave!"

Toede was stunned. "He succeeded? Groag?" he stammered. He looked at Bunniswot. "Short fellow, whines and faints a lot?"

The scholar nodded. "In the confusion following your… er… death, Groag arrived and usurped Rogate's preachings, but with the added punch line that he controlled your return, and unless all of Flotsam toed his line, you'd be back with a vengeance."

"An effective argument," said Toede. "And what happened when the populace laughed in his ugly face?"

"That's just it, they didn't laugh," said Bunniswot. 'They'd seen the local ruling class decimated twice in previous months by your apparent actions. They figured things could hardly be worse with Groag on the throne, so he took control by acclamation. After all, he claimed to be acting in your name."

"False pretender," muttered Rogate. "False minion! And he wore a mask, so none might know his face, though many knew his touch."

Toede was silent for a moment, unable to think of a suitable reply. Then he asked, "So how's he doing?"

Rogate snarled. Taywin shook her shorn head. Bunniswot answered, "You know how once I told you about Renders's histories, the ones that called you a fop and fool and a bumbler?" Rogate started to snarl again, so Bunniswot quickly added, "In a moment of light jest."

Toede nodded, an eye cast toward his new knight. "In a moment of light jest, I remember." It might be interesting having a follower with the protective nature of an attack dog.

"Well, Groag makes you look like wise king Lorac of the Silvanesti," Bunniswot said.

Toede leaned back against the wall and whistled. "That bad?"

"Corruption, despotism, whimsical rulings, oppression," said Bunniswot, ticking off his fingers.

"Nothing new there," said Toede, then added quickly for Rogate's benefit, "That's par for the course in half a dozen cities throughout Ansalon."

"Summary executions," said Bunniswot.

"Part of any ruler's rights," said Toede.

"Without hearing, involving torture, and in public," sighed Bunniswot. "The bodies displayed on the gibbets for crows."

Toede winced. "A little too much of a good thing. And was the population recalcitrant, to earn such heavy-handed responses?"

Bunniswot shook his head. "Not before. They are now."

"I suddenly understand why your… ah… my book on government is so popular," said Toede.

Bunniswot nodded. "Some inhabitants fled, and many merchants avoid the city now. Groag used to threaten the populace in your name, now he just threatens them period. He has hired small armies of mercenaries to protect him and his court. Nonhumans are banned once again. Other nonhumans, that is."

Taywin broke in. "We had heard about the new Lord of Flotsam from refugees around the time we found our hunting grounds being patrolled by hired swords. I went to Flotsam to see if it was the same Mister Groag that I had picked berries with." She touched her scalp. "It was. He had me arrested for poaching, my head shaved publicly, and my execution scheduled for the next day."

"Unfortunately, the paperwork was lost," said the scholar innocently. "So we ferreted her out of town in a flour barrel. We hooked up with Rogate here, who had moved in with the kender."

"We thought you'd be returning again," said Taywin.

"In six months, as before. So in between we organized our resources and arranged to keep an eye out for you."

"Now that you have returned," intoned Rogate, "the Allied Rebellion can move forward and crush the spine of the false minion, and spill the blood of his corruption on the sands of history!"

"We arranged for a meeting," Bunniswot added, "with the leader of the kender: Kronin, Taywin's father. With you present we can convince him to join us, and with his approval, the kender raiders will swell our rebellion."

"Uh-huh," said Toede. He looked at the others, then said, "And tell me, exactly, how many people do we currently have in this rebellion I am leading?"

Taywin said brightly, her eyes shining with hope, "Including you, me, Bunniswot, Sir Rogate, and Miles… that makes five."