The War of the Lance

CHAPTER SIX

Let me point out right here and now that it wasn't my fault we ended up in the Wasted Lands. I had a map and I told Fizban and Sir Owen we were heading the wrong direction. (It was a perfectly good map: if Tarsis By the Sea chose to get itself landlocked, I don't see how anyone can blame me for it!)

It was night. We were wandering around in the mountains when we came to a pass. I told Fizban that we should go left. That would lead us out of the mountains and take us to Sancrist. But Fizban scoffed and said my map was outdated (outdated!) and Owen Glendower vowed he'd shave his moustaches before he ever took advice from a kender. (Which seemed a fairly safe vow to me, considering that he didn't have all that much yet to shave.) This after he'd admitted that he'd gotten himself all turned around in Foghaven Vale and wasn't real sure where he was now!

He said that we should wait until morning and that when the sun came up we'd know what direction to take, but Fizban said he had a feeling in his bones that the sun wouldn't come up in the morning, and, by gosh, he was right. The sun didn't come up or if it did we missed it what with the snow and all.

So we turned right when we should have turned left and came to the Wasted Lands and the adventure, but this isn't the adventure's proper place in the story yet, so it'll have to wait its turn.

I could tell you about the days we spent traveling through the mountains in the snow but, to be honest, that part wasn't very exciting… if you don't count Fizban accidentally melting our snow shelter down around us one night while he was trying to read his spell book by the light of a magical candle that turned out to be more magic than candle. (I got to keep the wick)

One nice thing about that time was traveling with Owen Glendower. I was getting to like the knight a lot. He said he didn't even mind being around me much (which may not sound very gracious to you but is a lot more than I expected).

"Probably," he said, "because I don't have many valuables to lose."

I didn't quite understand that last part, especially since he kept losing what he said was his most treasured possession: a very beautiful little painting of his wife and son that he carried in a small leather pouch over his left breast underneath his armor.

He discovered it missing one night when we were relaxing in our snow shelter (the one Fizban melted) and we all hunted for the painting most diligently. It was right when Owen said he was going to turn me upside down and maybe inside out if I didn't give it back to him that Fizban happened to find the painting inside my shirt pocket.

"See there," I said, handing it back to Owen, "I kept it from getting wet."

He wasn't the least appreciative. For a minute I thought he was going to throw me out off the side of the mountain and for a minute he thought he was going to, too. But after a while he calmed down, especially when I told him that the lady inside the painting was one of the prettiest ladies I'd ever seen, next to Tika and Laurana and a certain kender maid I know whose name is engraved forever on my heart. (If I could remember it, I'd tell you, but I guess that it isn't important right now.)

Owen sighed and said he was sorry he shouted at me and he wasn't really going to slit my pockets or maybe my gut, whichever came first. It was only that he missed his wife and son so much and was so very worried about them because he was here in the snow with us and the dragonlances, and his wife and son were back in their house alone without him.

Well, I understood that, even if I didn't have a wife or a son or a house anymore. We made an agreement then and there. If I found the painting I was to give it right back to him immediately.

And it was amazing to me that he lost that painting as often as he did, considering how much it meant to him. But I didn't mention this to him, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. As I said, I was beginning to like Owen Glendower.

"Life hasn't been easy for my lady wife," he told us one other night while we were thawing out after having spent the day trekking about lost in the snow. "From what you've told me about your friend Brightblade, you know how the knights have been persecuted and reviled. My family was driven from our ancestral home years ago, but it was a point of honor among us that someday we would return to claim it. Our holdings have passed from one bad owner to the next. The people in the village have suffered under their tyrannies and though they were the ones who drove us out, they have more than paid for that now.

"I worked as a mercenary, to keep body and soul alive, and to earn the money to buy back lawfully what had been stolen from us. For I would be honorable, though the thieves that took it were not.

"At last, I was able to save the necessary sum. I am ashamed to say that I was forced to keep my identity as a knight secret, lest the owners refuse to sell to me."

He touched his moustaches as he said this. They were coming out fairly well, now, and were dark red as his hair.

"As it was, the thieves made a good bargain, for the manor was crumbling around their ears. We have repaired it ourselves, for I could not afford to hire the work done. The villagers helped. They were glad to see a knight return, especially in these dangerous times.

"My wife and son toiled beside me, both doing far more than their share. My wife's hands are rough and cracked from breaking stone and mixing mortar, but to me their touch is as soft as if she wrapped them in kid gloves every night of her life. Now she stands guard while I am gone, she and my boy. I did not like to leave them, with evil abroad in the land, but my duty lay with the knights, as she herself reminded me. I pray Paladine watches over them and keeps them safe."

"He does," said Fizban, only he said it very, very softly, so softly that I almost didn't hear him. And I might not have if I hadn't felt a snuffle coming on and so was searching in his pouch for a handkerchief.

Owen could tell the most interesting stories about when he was a mercenary and he said I was as good a listener as his son, though I asked too many questions.

We went on like this and were really having a good time and so I guess I have to admit that I didn't really mind that we took the wrong way. We'd been wandering around lost for about four days when it quit snowing and the sun came back.

Owen looked at the sun and frowned and said it was on the wrong side of the mountains.

I tried to be helpful and cheer him up. "If Tarsis By the Sea could move itself away from the sea, maybe these mountains hopped around, too."

But Owen didn't think much of my suggestion. He only looked very worried and grim. We were in the Wasted Lands, he said, and the bay we could see below us (Did I mention it? There was a bay below us.) was called Morgash Bay, which meant Bay of Darkness and that, all in all, we were in a Bad Place and should leave immediately, before it Got Worse.

"This is all your fault!" Fizban yelled at me and stamped his foot on the snow. "You and that stupid map."

"No, it isn't my fault!" I retorted. (Another good word — retorted.) "And it isn't a stupid map."

"Yes, it is!" Fizban shouted and he snatched his hat off his head and threw it on the snow and began to stomp up and down on top of it. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

Right then, things Got Worse.

Fizban fell into a hole.

Now, a normal person would fall into a normal hole, maybe twist an ankle or tumble down on his nose. But no, not Fizban. Fizban fell into a Hole. Not only that but he took us into the Hole along with him, which I considered thoughtful of him, but which Owen didn't like at all.

One minute Fizban was hopping up and down in the snow calling me a doorknob of a kender (That wasn't original, by the way. Flint yells that at me all the time.) and the next the snow gave way beneath his feet. He reached out to save himself and grabbed hold of me and I felt the snow start to give way beneath my feet and I reached out to save myself and grabbed hold of Owen and the snow started to give way beneath his feet and before we knew it we were all falling and falling and falling.

It was the most remarkable fall, and quite exciting, what with the snow flying around us and cascading down on top of us. There was one extremely interesting moment when I thought we were going to all be skewered on the dragonlances that Owen had been carrying and hadn't had time to let go of before I grabbed him. But we weren't.

We hit bottom and the lances hit bottom and the snow that came down with us hit bottom. We lay there a little bit, catching our breath. (I left mine up top somewhere.) Then Owen picked himself up out of a snowbank and glared at Fizban.

"Are you all right?" he demanded gruffly.

"Nothing's broken, if that's what you mean," Fizban said in a sort of quavery-type voice. "But I seem to have lost my hat."

Owen said something about consigning Fizban's hat to perdition and then he pulled me out of a snowbank and stood me up on my feet and picked me up when I fell back down (my breath not having made it this far yet) and he asked me if I was all right.

I said yes and wasn't that thrilling and did Fizban think there was the possibility we could do that again. Owen said the really thrilling part was just about to begin because how in the name of the Abyss were we going to get out of here?

Well, about that time I took a good look at where we were and we were in what appeared to be a cave all made out of snow and ice and stuff. And the hole that we'd fallen through was a long, long, long way up above us.

"And so are our packs and the rope and the food," said Owen, staring up at the hole we'd made and frowning.

"But we don't need to worry," I said cheerfully. "Fizban's a very great and powerful wizard and he'll just fly us all back up there in a jiffy. Won't you, Fizban?"

"Not without my hat," he said stiffly. "I can't work magic without my hat."

Owen muttered something that I won't repeat here as it isn't very complimentary to Fizban and I'm sure Owen is ashamed now he said something like that. And he frowned and glowered, but it soon became obvious that we couldn't get out of that hole without magic of some sort.

I tried climbing up the sides of the cave walls, but I kept sliding back down and was having a lot of fun, though not getting much accomplished, when Owen made me stop after a whole great load of snow broke loose and fell on top of us. He said the whole mountain might collapse.

There was nothing left to do but look for Fizban's hat.

Owen had dug the dragonlances out of the snow and he said the hat might be near where they were. We looked, but it wasn't. And we dug all around where Fizban had fallen and the hat wasn't there either.

Fizban was getting very unhappy and starting to blubber.

"I've had that hat since it was a pup," he whimpered, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the end of his beard. "Best hat in the whole world. Prefer a fedora, but they're not in for wizards. Still — "

I was about to ask who was Fedora and what did she have to do with his hat when Owen said "Shush!" in the kind of voice that makes your blood go all tingly and your stomach do funny things.

We shushed and stared at him.

"I heard something!" he said, only he said it without any voice, just his mouth moved.

I listened and then I heard something, too.

"Did you hear something?" asked a voice, only it wasn't any of our voices doing the asking. It came from behind a wall of snow that made up one end of the cave.

I'd heard that kind of voice before — slithery and hissing and ugly. I knew right off what it was, and I could tell from the expression on Owen's face — angry and loathing — that he knew too.

"Draconian!" Owen whispered.

"It was only a snowfall," answered another voice, and it boomed, deep and cold, so cold that it sent tiny bits of ice prickling through my skin and into my blood and I shivered from toe to topknot. "Avalanches are common in these mountains."

"I thought I heard voices," insisted the draconian. "On the other side of that wall. Maybe it's the rest of my outfit."

"Nonsense. I commanded them to wait up in the mountains until I come. They don't dare disobey. They better not disobey, or I'll freeze them where they stand. You're nervous, that's all. And I don't like dracos who are nervous. You make me nervous. And when I get nervous I kill things."

There came a great slithering and scraping sound and the whole mountain shook. Snow came down on top of us again, but none of us moved or spoke. We just stared at each other. Each of us could match up that sound with a picture in our minds and while my picture was certainly very interesting, it wasn't conducive to long life. (Tanis told me once I should try to look at things from the perspective of whether they were or were not conducive to long life. If they weren't, I shouldn't hang around, no matter how interesting I thought it might be. And this wasn't.)

"A dragon 1" whispered Owen Glendower, and he looked kind of awed.

"Not conducive to long life," I advised him, in case he didn't know.

I guess he did, because he glared at me like he would like to put his hand over my mouth but couldn't get close enough, so I put my own hand over my own mouth to save him the trouble.

"Probably a white dragon," murmured Fizban, whose eyes were about ready to roll out of his head. "Oh, my hat! My hat!" He wrung his hands.

Perhaps I should stop here and explain where we were in relation to the dragon. I'm not certain, but I think we were probably in a small cave that was right next to an extremely large cave where the dragon lived. A wall of snow separated us and I began to think that it wasn't a very thick wall of snow. I mean, when one is trapped in a cave with a white dragon, one would like a wall of snow to be about a zillion miles thick, and I had the unfortunate feeling that this one wasn't.

So there we were, in a snow cave, slowly freezing to death (did I mention that?) and we couldn't move, not a muscle, for fear the dragon would hear us. Fizban couldn't work his magic because he didn't have his hat. Owen didn't look like he knew what to do, and I guess I couldn't blame him because he'd probably never come across a dragon before now. So we didn't do anything except stand there and breathe and we didn't even do much of that. Just what we had to.

"Go on with your report," said the dragon.

"Yes, o Master." The draconian sounded a lot more respectful, probably not wanting to make the dragon nervous. "I scouted the village, like you said. It's fat — lots of food laid in for the winter. One of those (the draconian said a bad word here) Solamnic Knights has a manor near it, but he's off on some sort of errand."

"Has he left behind men-at-arms to guard his manor?"

The draconian made a rude noise. "This knight's poor as dirt, Master. He can't afford to keep men-at-arms. The manor's empty, except for his wife and kid."

Owen's face lost some of its color at this. I felt sorry for him because I knew he must be thinking of his own wife and child.

"The villagers?"

"Peasants!" The draconian spit. "They'll fall down and wet themselves when our raiding parties attack. It'll be easy pickings."

"Excellent. We will store the food here, to be used when the main force arrives to take the High Clerist's Tower. Are there more villages beyond this?"

"Yes, O Master. I will show you on the map. Glendower is here. And then beyond that there are — "

But I didn't hear anymore because I was afraid suddenly that Owen Glendower was going to fall over. His face had gone whiter than the snow and he shook so that his armor rattled.

"My family!" he groaned, and I saw his knees start to buckle.

I can move awfully quietly when I have to and I figured that this was one time I had to. I crept over to him, put my arm around him, and propped him up until he quit shaking.

He was grateful, I think, because he held onto me very tightly, uncomfortably tightly (did I mention he was really strong) and my breath almost left me again before he relaxed and let loose.

By now some blood had come back into his cheeks and he didn't look sick anymore. He looked grim and determined and resolved, and I knew then and there what he was planning to do. It was not conducive to a long life.

The dragon and draconian had gone into a rather heated discussion over which village they should burn and pillage and loot next after Glendower.

I took advantage of the noise they were making to whisper to Owen, "Have you ever seen a dragon?"

He shook his head. He was tightening buckles on his armor and pulling at straps and things and, having seen Sturm do this before a battle, I knew what it meant.

"They're huge," I said, feeling a snuffle coming on, "and extremely big. And enormous. And they have terrible sharp teeth and they're magical. More magical than Fizban. More magical than Raistlin, even, only you don't know him, so I guess that doesn't mean much. And the white dragons can kill you by just breathing on you. I know because I met one in Ice Wall. They can turn you into ice harder than this mountain and kill you dead."

I said all this, but it didn't seem to make any impression on Owen Glendower. He just kept buckling and tightening and his face got more and more cold and determined until I begin to think that it might not make much difference if the white dragon breathed a cone of frost on the knight because he looked already frozen to me.

"Oh, Fizban 1" I'm afraid I may have whimpered a bit here, but I truly didn't want to see Owen turned into part of this mountain. "Make him stop!"

But Fizban was no help. The wizard got that crafty, cunning look on his face that makes me feel squirmy, and he said, real soft, "He can do it. He has the dragonlances!"

Owen lit up. He stood tall and straight and his eyes shone bright green, fueled from inside by a beautiful, awful, radiant light.

"Yes," he said in a reverent voice, like he was praying. "Paladine sent the lances to my hand and then sent me here, to save my family. This is Paladine's work."

Well, I felt like telling him, No, it wasn't Paladine. It was just an old, skinny, and occasionally fuddled wizard who got us into this by falling into a hole. But I didn't. I had more important things on my mind.

Like the dragonlances.

I looked at them lying in the snow, and I could hear Theros's voice in my head. And I looked at Owen, standing so tall and handsome, and I thought about the painting of his wife and child and how sad they'd be if he was dead. Then I thought that if he was dead they'd be dead, too. And I heard Theros's voice again in my head.

Owen reached down and picked up one of the dragonlances and before I could stop it, a yell burst out of me.

"No! Owen! You can't use the dragonlances I" I cried, grabbing hold of his arm and hanging on. "They don't work!"