Tanis the shadow years

33

"I wonder who lives there," Tanis marveled, looking down upon a small village nestled in a shaft of light below Fistandantilus's towering, dark mountain.

"Let's hope they're friendly," ventured Brandella.

They trudged, hungry and thirsty, down the path to the outskirts of a brightly colored, bustling little town. Tanis took note of the humans, dwarves, elves, and gnomes, all of whom were dashing into and out of warm and inviting-looking buildings that lined the main road through the village. He smiled suddenly and laughed.

Brandella gave him a questioning look. A flake of dried mud dropped from her chin to the soiled shirt that used to be green. She said, "You seem to be in surprisingly good spirits, considering where we are."

He had to admit he was. "I always thought of dying as some sort of eternal sleep. But here the sun is always at high noon. It's never dark-except around the bleak, evil mountains-it doesn't rain, the wind doesn't blow… it's like a perfect summer day, every day."

Brandella made a wry face. "Monotonous, isn't it?"

"I hope that we're here just long enough that it doesn't become so," he said.

"Stop!" The new voice came from behind a fence. They stopped and watched in amazement as the owner of the voice, quivering with fear, slid out in front of them. "Stop!"

"We've stopped," Tanis explained patiently.

The creature, which barely came up to Tanis's waist, cringed. "Not hurt me!" It fairly imploded with fear.

"A gully dwarf!" Brandella exclaimed. "What do you suppose it wants?"

In reply, the pudgy little creature pulled a leather pouch from over its shoulder and thrust its hand into the bag. It drew out a squashed piece of fried dough. "Magic!" the gully dwarf squeaked. "Stop!"

Tanis sighed. Brandella kneeled and stretched out one hand, palm up. "What's your name?" she asked softly. "May I see what you have?" She half-turned to Tanis and said, "Look. He's found food around here!"

Tanis cleared his throat. "Brandella, I think…"

The gully dwarf curled into a quivering ball on the hard-packed dirt street. Only one arm remained free, waving the moldy dough in a semicircle. An algae-green eye peered over a filthy sleeve. Brandella took it as an invitation. "Look," she said. "He's offering…"

Tanis shook his head. "I don't think…" Suddenly, the dwarf leaped into the air, shrieked, "MAGIC!" at the top of its lungs, flung the fried dough onto the ground, and dove for the shelter of a nearby stairway. The dough hit the ground with a crack-and split open. Its insides had turned to dust. Brandella poked at it with a tentative finger and grimaced.

The half-elf tried to look sympathetic. "My guess is that the gully dwarf died with that in its pack," Tanis said.

The gully dwarf had reappeared and was venturing back into the street. "Strong magic, you!" it proclaimed, and pointed at the weaver and Tanis. "You still here!" Its dull eyes were wide.

"Magic?" Brandella asked. "Who is he, anyway?"

Her question was answered, not by the half-elf, but by a creature slightly shorter than the gully dwarf. This one resembled a muscular human child, except tor the pointed ears, olive eyes, and orange-red hair swept into a long braid at the top of her head.

"That's the town guardian. Isn't that interesting? Where are you two from? You're alive, aren't you? I used to be alive. I'm dead now, though. That's pretty interesting, too, but not as interesting as being alive," the creature rattled on.

"A kender," Tanis said with a groan. "I'm trapped in Death with a kender and a gully dwarf."

Brandella remained kneeling, but she kept a wary eye on the newest creature. Kender are notorious for their curiosity, which usually involves "finding" numerous shiny, often expensive objects that "just happen" to fall out of strangers' pouches, purses, and packs. All Brandella had left that could be easily filched were her muddy shoes, but the shoes had shiny buckles and the kender had been giving them appreciative glances.

"Where are we?" the weaver asked the kender.

"Yagom. It's just packed with dead people," the Kender said, reaching over and dragging the filthy gully dwarf toward her. The kender seemed used to the dwarf's odor, but Brandella winced.

"He smells like a dead rat," she complained.

'Thanks for the compliment," the kender observed.

The gully dwarf beamed, picked up the fragment of dough, and reached around the Kender to present it to Brandella. "Strong magic. You take," it said. She put out a reluctant hand. "Thank you," she said. Tanis shifted impatiently beside the trio. "An odd town, with a gully dwarf as its main guard. What does he guard against?" The kender, who had shifted his gaze to Tanis's scabbard, gave the half-elf a bright-eyed look. "Nobody grubbier than Clym here gets inside the village. Of course, until now we haven't seen anybody filthier than Jard. But the town council says we must keep up the image, living in the shadow of Fistandantilus's mountain, and all." "Do many people come to climb it?" Brandella asked. The kender looked surprised and interested, which was typical for one of her race. "Why would someone want to do that? Not that it's not a good idea, of course. In fact, I'd like to try it. What do you think might be up there?" The kender stopped to examine a silver buckle that had suddenly materialized in her hand. Brandella exclaimed and snatched the bauble away from the creature. She refastened it to her shoe. Tanis squelched a smile. "Sayl Is that yours?" the kender asked innocently. "Lucky thing I found it, huh? Are you here to climb the mountain?" "We're looking for the portal to Life on the other side, of course," Tanis explained. The kender laughed. So did the gully dwarf. "You seem to be funnier than you realize," Brandella said darkly to the half-elf. "Portal?" the gully dwarf queried. The kender patted him on the shoulder, then faced Tanis and Brandella. "Who told you about a portal?" "Huma of the Lance," Tanis said. The gully dwarf laughed again. 'The man with the flower garden?" the kender asked. 'That's him," Brandella replied.

"He tells everyone he's Huma. Which is pretty incredible because…"

"You mean he isn't?" Tanis demanded.

The kender, for once, said nothing. The gully dwarf gave Tanis a condescending look that seemed to say, "Are you that stupid?" Which was quite a statement from a gully dwarf, Tanis thought.

The half-elf got the message. Then, in a low voice, he asked, "Does that mean that there's no portal?"

"If there is, nobody's ever found it. Although I'd like to look," the kender chimed. "But no One would go with me, I guess. Would you?" Correctly interpreting Tanis's malignant glare, the kender hurried on, her orange-red braid quivering in her haste. "No, I guess not."

Tanis pulled Brandella aside and softly suggested, "If we're going to find out about Fistandantilus's mountain, we've got to find someone to talk to besides a gully dwarf and a kender." He tugged at his leather tunic; it had gone from slightly slimy when wet, to stiff and tight when dry.

"Is there anyplace nearby where we can wash this mud off ourselves?" Tanis asked the kender.

"Oh, yes," she replied enthusiastically. "A lovely place!"

"Where7"

'The Baths of Behobiphi. It's the white building on the left side. The one with the soapy bushes on the far side. That's where Behobiphi dumps the water after it's used," the kender confided. "Sometimes I help Behobiphi look after people's clothes while they bathe."

Brandella looked dubious. "He hires a kender to guard valuables?"

The kender looked away. "Well, not exactly hires. I just help out on my own. To be nice, you understand. In fact, Behobiphi sometimes doesn't even know I'm there."

"Most of the time, I'll wager," Tanis muttered.

Brandella swallowed a smile and addressed the kender. "Can you take us there?" she asked sweetly, deftly retrieving her other buckle from the creature's pouch. The olive eyes widened again.

"Wow I You lost the other one, too? Good thing I was around to keep you from losing them permanently. I mean, that would've…"

The kender's chatter rattling on ahead and the smell of the gully dwarf following behind, Brandella and Tanis marched down Yagorn's main street, attracting very little attention until the gully dwarf suddenly pointed at them and shouted, "Alive! Alive! Magic!" Soon a crowd of the curious pressed about them; the kender had a field day finding "lost" objects as humans, gnomes, and others scrutinized the two strangers. Luckily, they'd reached the Baths. The gully dwarf beat on the nine-foot door and then dashed, terrified, down the street and into an alley.

The door opened, and they were greeted by an eight- foot minotaur with a sheet wrapped around his body. The half-man, half-bull looked out at the crowd that had followed Tanis and Brandella, and, nostrils flaring, asked dubiously, "You all want baths?"

"Just us," Tanis answered. Brandella stared, wordless, at the beast. "The, ah, living ones," the half-elf explained.

The beast turned gentle, liquid eyes toward the pair. "Living?" the minotaur asked. "Haven't seen one of them here in more than three thousand years. And now, two at once!" He took Tanis and Brandella by their hands and ushered them inside. The Kender waved good-bye.

"I am honored that you wish to partake of my baths," said Behobiphi in reverent tones. "By the gods," he added, "you certainly do need them, too. I dare say you are rather dirty. Are living beings this dirty all the time? Is this how it is on Krynn now, all mud and dirt?"

Tanis smiled and shook his head. "A recent accident. We'd like to get cleaned up and then find our way back to Life. We heard that there is a portal on the other side of Fistandantilus's mountain that will take us there."

"That's the story Huma tells, isn't it7" The minotaur seemed sympathetic for a creature known on Krynn for its bloodthirsty nature. Tanis and Brandella glanced at each other, both sinking into despair.

"Not too many believe that one," the minotaur went on while he showed them two tubs full of hot, soapy water. His voice was so deep, it was difficult to decipher. "After all, the whole idea of a portal is kind of old- fashioned, don't you think?" He shook his horned head. "I don't know how these rumors get started."

Behobiphi pulled a sheet across a rope to separate the two tubs. "When you're through washing," he said, pointing to a pile of towels, "take one of those and go out in the back. Softfire will help dry you off."

The minotaur was about to leave when Tanis called out, "If there is no portal, then is there some other way to get out of Death? Any way at all?"

The creature paused and scratched one leg with a sharp hoof. "Hundreds of theories. Maybe thousands. For instance, the gnomes of Yagorn have been working on a machine for a couple of thousand years that's supposed to get us all back to Life. It ought to work, too. Have you noticed that the sun here doesn't go down?"

Tanis nodded doubtfully.

"Well, the gnomes figure that if night ever comes to Death, then a new day of Life will have to dawn for all of us who dwell here," Behobiphi said, and wrapped his sheet more tightly. "So they're trying to build a machine that will pull the sun out of the sky. They think they may have the problem licked in another three or four thousand years. Now, that, you have to admit, is every bit as plausible as Huma's portal, right?" He favored Tanis with a guileless glance.

Sadly, Tanis had to agree. He began to undress; on the other side of the divider, he could hear Brandella doing the same. A shoe clunked to the floor, and a low wail sounded through the thin curtain.

"My buckles!" Brandella mourned.