Lord Toede

Chapter 22

The moot that Taywin had mentioned was another name for a big kender party, and the planning for said party had been bubbling and ebbing for days. The last of the winter stores (mostly salted trout and grape preserves) were being plundered, along with the standard complement of goose, boar, and a delicacy that had eluded Toede previously-hedgehogs wrapped in mud and roasted in their own shells.

Toede watched the geese roasting over the fire and thought of Groag, curled up in his manor (meaning Toede's manor), seated at a table heavily laden with culinary treasures and surrounded on all sides by fawning sycophants. He could imagine that, but equally he could imagine the new lord of Flotsam tightly curled up in his bed, eyeing the darkness nervously, unable to sleep, jumping at every noise.

From what the others had described, it sounded as though the city had fallen on hard times indeed under Groag's rule. There was little there to attract Toede, unless he put Groag's death high on his "to-do" list.

Groag's death was on his list, but not in the top ten, to be honest. After all, the drive to claim his vaunted lordship had several times resulted in an unpleasant death. Toede might have a learning curve verging on a flat line, but he did connect Flotsam with messy, bloody deaths (usually his). Toede thought of Groag, and his drunken palate wrapped around the word: a-dap-tive.

The problem was that his compatriots-pornographer, poetess, nut-case, and guard-were intent on helping him regain this flawed gem, this dead dog of a city, and did not care to take no for an answer. Particularly the nutcase, who, Toede was sure, would get agitated should the target of his fervor prove less than excited about the prospect of reclaiming his historical throne.

Rogate the nut-case was wrapped up in some kind of fantasy version of justice. Taywin was in it for revenge and retribution. Bunniswot apparently considered this some great adventure, like those accursed Heroes of the Lance. And Miles?

Toede looked at the kender guard, who hovered close by him at all times. Miles beamed back at him with a gap-toothed grin, and Toede smiled weakly. Miles? Well, someone in every revolution has to do the heavy lifting, make the tea, pass out the leaflets, and make sure the hero of the rebellion-in this case, Toede-doesn't head for the hills.

Tomorrow, he would have to face Kronin.

Toede winced to think of the kender leader, and wondered how Kronin felt about him. After all, it was Toede who had ordered Kronin and another kender shackled and chased on that disastrous hunt, on the last day of his first life. And even though the kender elder seemed to have a mind like a steel sieve, the pair of them had run rings around Toede and his hunting party, right up to the point when Toede confronted the fire-breathing end of an angry dragon. And died.

Perhaps Kronin was setting Toede up. Perhaps the kender leader intended to shackle him to a boulder and give him a fifteen-minute head start before setting the hounds loose. Toede rubbed his chin at the thought. The kender were little more than savages, and Kronin could be holding a grudge.

Then again, so could Toede. It wouldn't hurt to pack a little extra precaution.

The present kender camp was located near the spot where Groag and he had plunged into the river almost a year ago. Most of the huts had been erected far from the water, and the intended moot-site was among the taller trees that overlooked the berry patches. Toede wandered back to his hut, his guardian in tow. Miles stopped at the entrance while Toede ducked in and searched through his meager belongings.

Taking the sword was out of the question, unfortunately, but the dagger would be just fine. Nicely weighted, it would suitable both for throwing and for use in tight combat, while the blade was fine enough to slip between the ribs of an opponent, be he human or kender.

Perfect precaution, thought Toede, slipping it into the oversized dwarven boots he had been wearing for a year (Krynn time). Or maybe more than just precaution. Given an opportunity, perhaps he would extract a little vengeance on his own. Kronin had caused his death, after all. The first of many, and the beginning of all his troubles.

Not that Kronin would be alone on his list of vengeance. Groag had suggested that ill-fated hunt, after all. And Miles had been all too quick to strike him down, earlier.

Toede realized he would have to keep expanding the list as he went along, but Kronin, Groag, and Miles would do for now.

There was a knock, and Taywin stuck her head in, looking like a shaved chipmunk. "We're starting! Come on!"

Toede smiled and walked out of the hut to join the others, limping only slightly from the additional weight in his boot.

A kender moot, or at least this kender moot, differed from most regular kender festivals chiefly in that during

the moot there were tables set up. They weren't much in the way of tables, in that they were only a foot off the ground, and the kender had to sit or kneel on the hard-packed earth, but at least they kept the food within a set boundary.

Already several of the revelers were using the tables as impromptu dance platforms. Toede identified two polkas and a reel, dancers bouncing between tables and sending dishware and bits of the feast in all directions.

Typical kender behavior, Toede thought.

There were already several makeshift song groups warming up, Toede noted, including not a few rehearsing ribald choruses regarding the social habits of elves. A white-haired kender elder, his hair spun into an elaborate braid that ran to the small of his back, was leading two tables in a call-and-respond contest. The lyrics of this drinking song shot from one table to the other like a shuttlecock. Those at the first table would shout "Oly-Oly-Oly-Ay!" and those at the second table would respond "Oly-Oly-Oly-Ay!". Then the first group would shout "Aley-Aley-Aley-O!" and the second group "Aley-Aley-Aley-O!" The kender at both tables would spend the time between responses drinking as quickly and as much as they could. This continued until both sides passed out.

Toede suddenly understood why Taywin's poetry might be considered sophisticated among these people. Then again, so might limericks about the Dark Queen's consorts.

Miles escorted Toede to the main table, situated on a patch of earth slightly higher than the rest, with a wall of woven grass behind it to frame the utmost important personages at the feast. These personages were Kronin's cronies, and in this case, leaders of the rebellion.

Miles was on the end, then Rogate and Bunniswot (both looking terribly uncomfortable and oversized). Then Toede, seated in the place of honor on Kronin's right. Then Taywin on his left, along with a pack of kender politicos-clan leaders and the like. The entire group was seated on one side of the table looking out over the assembled tribes.

Just what Toede had in mind for a pleasant evening- watching a hundred kender gorge themselves.

As Toede was duly escorted to his place of honor, Kro-nin rose to greet him. The kender leader always reminded Toede of a white-tufted squirrel, his childlike but ancient face looking as though it had walnuts stored in its cheeks. Toede pulled out his all-purpose let's-be-nice-to-the-local-ruling-class smile and warmly took the kender's extended hand.

"It is good to see you again, Toede," said Kronin.

"And you as well," beamed Toede. "Especially under such pleasant circumstances."

"More pleasant than last time, eh?" joshed Kronin, elbowing Toede in the ribs. The hobgoblin had to fight with all his willpower to avoid pulling the dagger and stabbing the cheery little freak right where he stood.

Instead he said, "At least the food is better."

"It should be," smiled the elder kender. "It came from your forest."

"It's not my forest," smiled Toede, adding, "Anymore." But he added silently, At the moment.

Toede looked for some clue behind Kronin's eyes, some telltale glint that this moot was in fact a ruse, a trap, or a stratagem. Yet if there was revenge in Kronin's heart, it was carefully concealed, for Toede could discern no apparent clue. This worried him further.

Toede remained standing as Kronin motioned for the kender horde to quiet down.

"Welcome to the moot, all the clans of kenderdom!" There was polite applause. Someone yelled 'Toast!"

Kronin continued without pause. "I want to thank all and sundry for coming on this festive occasion, in particular our human guests." Rogate and Bunniswot nodded to general clapping. "Especially our honored guest, the Highmaster-in-Exile of Flotsam, Lord Toede." Toede nodded to decidedly less applause, and there was another shout for "Toast!"

"His highmastership spent a few brief days with us almost a year ago," Kronin added, "and was responsible for saving the life of my lovely daughter." More applause, though this was mostly for Taywin, who waved at the assemblage.

Kronin motioned to Toede that now he was expected to utter a few words. The hobgoblin cleared his voice. "My only regret is that I was not here long enough in days of yore to get to know every one of you wonderful kender." Greater applause to this compliment, and Toede sat back down, thinking, And I further regret not having a team of talented torturers with me at the time.

During Toede's small speech, Kronin rescued from the table a wooden goblet that he now held aloft. "I give you the first toast of the evening." There was wild applause, and Kronin looked pensive, as if summoning some ghost of a memory. Then he proclaimed, "Drink deep the cup of life, for time will sup it if you do not." It was an appropriate toast, and there were cheers and the clinking of mugs.

Kronin turned to the hobgoblin, clacking goblets with him. Toede nodded politely. "A good toast," he said. Kronin smiled. "It should be, you wrote it." Toede's smile froze for an instant. Then he said smoothly, 'True, but you seem to have caught the nuance of the passage perfectly. I have never heard it recited better." He added the mental note that, until he himself had read the dratted thing, he had best assume that every smutty or hedonistic statement uttered around him was a quote from his supposed book.

Kronin did not seem to notice Toede's tightened facial muscles. "When I first read the book, I couldn't believe you were responsible for it. It's so… deep. Thoughtful. Intelligent."

Toede tried to unclench his teeth. "Surprised?" he asked.

"Very," responded Kronin, ignoring the color crawling into Toede's face. "I mean, in our limited dealings, you struck me as a bully, a lout, and a simpleton. No offense meant."

"None taken," said Toede, aware of the drag of the dagger in his boot.

"And yet, such clear, precise thinking, masking itself in sensual analogy…" Kronin shook his head. "It only makes me wonder why you didn't put such thoughts into action earlier, before you got yourself killed."

"Retirement gives an opportunity for reflection," smiled Toede.

"Exactly my conclusion!" said Kronin. "I would no more think of you saying such things, or even sitting down here with us, than I could imagine a badger singing sopera. This only confirms a personal theory I have about your tyrannical rule."

"Oh?" said Toede.

"Your heart wasn't in it," concluded the kender elder, slapping the table. "You could not reconcile your own conscionable beliefs with the dragon highlords who created your position and supported your regime. So as a result, you sought to appear as the bumbling, hedonistic, groveling petty tyrant that everyone thought you were. Whereas, in reality, you were the very opposite."

There was another call for a toast. Kronin rose to address the crowd.

That does it, Toede thought. I'm going to kill him. This time for sure. The only question is when. A true smile blossomed on his sallow face.

Kronin made another suggestive toast involving blossom petals and honey, and sat back down. Toede took a pull from his cup and enjoyed the pleasant cranberry wine, very potent.

"You're going to quote me all night?" chided Toede.

"Your words are honest and brave," said Kronin, "unlike the public facade you presented to the world. My daughter has always been sympathetic to you, but I fear I could not see behind the mean-spirited boot-spittle lackey image you showed to the outside world. I mean, is it true you once went drinking with Raistlin, and that he was almost left behind by the Companions as a result?"

As the evening continued in a similar vein, Kronin's tongue became looser, his prose more direct and explicit, particularly as to how the new Toede was far superior to that gutless, inbred, despotic little excuse for a sliver-of-worm-larva that he had been when he was in charge of Flotsam. All of these insults were delivered with a glib smile, and an assurance that the kender leader knew that Toede was much better now.

Kronin's opinion of Groag was even worse, but only in the matter of degree. At one point the kender was saying how Groag was more Toedelike than Toede had ever been, when the elderly kender's conversation took a turn, and he mentioned the loss of his daughter's lovely locks. It was an off-hand reference to Groag's senseless cruelty, but it halted Kronin in his conversational tracks. The old kender grew quiet, and Toede could almost hear his old kender heart breaking.

Then the moment passed, and Kronin resumed his detailed comparison of Toede and Groag. Toede felt his blood pressure climbing. The worst thing that could happen, thought the hobgoblin as the kender nattered on, would be for him to die again. At the hands of kender it would take a while, because they wouldn't know how to proceed properly and would probably talk him to death.

Five more toasts and an hour of comparative comments later, Toede's head was aching, both from the conversation and the wine. Kronin interrupted his fourth analysis of Toede's first death to stagger to his feet and gesture to the increasingly rambunctious crowd. "You have heard many toasts this evening," he slurred, "all from the mind of this incredible individual known as Toede." There was drunken and thunderous applause at this point, with the by-now-woozy Toede convinced they had forgotten who they were cheering for. The inner rage at pompous Kronin, foolish Taywin, the kender rabble, their stupid songs and their excessive eating habits, had pushed him to the boiling point. It wouldn't take much more to push him over the edge.

"But I do not want to be the only one speaking," Kronin continued, "so I grant the floor to my daughter, Taywin."

Oh, no, thought Toede.

Kronin went on, oblivious. "Taywin will be reading a litany of her best poems…"

"That does it," muttered Toede, as he leaned down to grab the knife out his boot, and then jam it between Kro-* run's ribs. Then a quick escape into the darkness and freedom.

There was a prickly feeling that passed over Toede's neck when he bent forward, and then, when he looked up, dagger in hand, he saw to his astonishment that there was already a dagger sticking in Kronin's side. The kender elder looked in confusion at the blood fountaining out of his right side, mouthed something incomprehensible, and collapsed onto his daughter.

Toede looked at the unused dagger in his own hand, at the implement jutting out of the kender, and back to the dagger again, as if unable to believe that there were multiple poetry-haters at the moot.

Then Miles gave a shout. "The hobgoblin's stabbed Kronin! Get him!"

Toede felt the entire weight of two-hundred-plus eyes fix on him simultaneously, backed up by two-hundred-plus hands, all armed with knives, forks, and other instruments of potential personal damage.

Toede rose halfway, looked out at the angry faces, and seemed about to speak. Then he wheeled, cut a long,

savage rip in the screen behind the main table, and bolted, leaving the charging kender behind, and Taywin screaming for order.

Kronin's assassin moved as silently as possible toward the river bank. He had to make a large loop to avoid the mass of confusion, for an impromptu posse of impassioned and drunken kender had charged in various directions after the incident-to the village and Toede's hut, to the river, to the old campsite. Bands of kender in fours and fives went tumbling in all directions in the dark, intent on fetching the hounds and catching the traitorous criminal.

Twice now, packs of dazed kender had boiled past him, completely unaware that the true murderer was in their sights and providing erroneous information to them.

The assassin smiled as he slipped quietly between the large boles, down to the embankment and toward the lone maple bridge across the stream. The water glowed white in the moonlight.

He was at the near end of the bridge when a small shadow detached itself from a tree about fifteen feet away. The hobgoblin-shaped shadow strode forward into the moonlight, as the assassin stopped dead in his tracks.

"Hello, Miles," said Toede, tapping his dagger against his nails.

"Toede," lisped the kender guard. "Thought I'd find you here."

"No, you didn't," smiled Toede. "You thought nothing of the kind. You thought this was the easiest way to escape. I know because I had the same route planned."

"I don't know what you're talking about," sputtered the kender.

"You threw the dagger that hit Kronin."

"You don't know that!" said the kender. "You were looking elsewhere, leaning under the table."

"You would notice that," said Toede. "Then you must know that I could not have done the deed. Yet you were the first to shout for my head. It was you, Rogate, Bunni-swot, Kronin, and I on that side of table. If it had been Rogate, you would have seen it clearly, and maybe even have stopped him. Bunniswot is a scholar who can't even handle a butter knife without causing himself grievous injury. I was leaning forward, you said so yourself. So the only one who could have done it was…"

"I didn't mean to hit him," spat the kender.

"No, you meant to hit me," finished the hobgoblin. "But I leaned forward, so you missed and struck Taywin's father."

There was a silence. Finally the kender guard said, "You can't take me back, you know." ' "I can't?" said Toede.

"Look. You take me back, and as soon as I get within shouting range, I shout that I've spotted you." Miles chose his words carefully. "There are a hundred crazed kender out there, all of them after your hide. You may know the truth, but by the time anyone listens, you will be garot-ted."

"I've been dead before," shrugged Toede.

"And you really want to be dead again?" said Miles. When the hobgoblin didn't respond, the kender said, "I'm going now. Best of luck on your own escape." He started across the slippery pole, his footing sure and even.

"Miles?" came Toede's shout behind him. Halfway across the pole, the kender turned, looking over his shoulder at the hobgoblin.

"Yes, Toede?" he said.

"Why?"

Miles turned on the narrow bridge. He spread his hands out to explain that if Toede was supposed to be a martyr, he should be a dead martyr, for he knew about all the lies and half-truths that Bunniswot and Rogate and even Taywin told. He wanted to prove Toede an unworthy being to follow, and the best thing for the hobgoblin was to die under the kender swords.

Miles intended to say all that, really. But as he spread his hands, he felt a harsh, sharp thump in his chest, and looked down to see the hilt of Toede's dagger protruding from his shirt, just to the left of his sternum.

Then he felt the cold rush of the waters hit, and then nothing more at all.

"Dance upon the water lilies, Miles," said Toede. "Dance upon the lilies."

It was about a half hour later when Bunniswot found Toede, still at the bridge, listening to the thunder of the rapids.

Toede started for a moment, then nodded as Bunniswot sat down next to him.

"How bad is it?" said the hobgoblin.

"Not as bad as it seemed," said the scholar. "It became apparent soon after the attack that you were not responsible, and would have been realized sooner if Rogate had not gotten into a wrestling match with a dozen kender, defending your good name."

"Kronin alive?"

"They have a few good healers," Bunniswot said, nodding, "and they anticipate injuries at a moot, so he's fine. He thinks you're out finding the assassin."

"Already found him," said Toede. "Miles."

Another nod from the scholar. "They figured that, too. He alive?"

"No," said Toede, not adding anything else.

"Well," said the scholar, "after they sorted out that you didn't try to kill Kronin, but Miles probably did, the entire party shifted into a celebration in your honor-you know, the brave little humanoid, unfairly accused, who seeks out the guilty party."

'That's a new one," grunted Toede.

"And it's now more than ever likely that the kender clans will join the rebellion," added Bunniswot. "You want to head back?"

"In a moment." Toede sighed, then added, "Ever kill anyone, scholar?"

"Me?" A nervous laugh. "Oh, no. Uh… and you?"

"More than I care to count," said Toede. "Even more that I have been indirectly responsible for. And yet, this one, felt so…"

'Troubling?" suggested Bunniswot. "Painful? Thought-provoking?"

"Satisfying," finished Toede, ignoring Bunniswot's sudden start. "This one was worth it, as though I had accomplished something. You know?"

"Uh," said Bunniswot, "I don't, I'm afraid."

Toede sighed again. "Must be a deficiency in your species. I guess we should go back. What's on tap now?"

Bunniswot brightened. "You missed several more toasts to your glory, and now Taywin is reading her poetry."

Toede made a face. "Perhaps we ought not to hurry back," he said. "Maybe we should get our story straight about my epic battle with the assassin. It would help if I had a scholarly witness to the culmination."

Toede looked at the scholar for a moment, then added with a smile, "And while we're at it, you can remind me of some of 'my' quotes."