“I think it’s awfully sad,” said Tasslehoff. He stood with his forehead pressed against the window, peering out the glass.
“Look, there’s a kender. And another. And another. Hullo!” Tasslehoff tapped with his hands on the window. “Hullo, there! What have you got in your pouches?”
The spirits of the dead kender ignored this customary kender greeting
—a question no living kender could have resisted—and were soon lost in the crowd, disappearing among the other souls: elves, dwarves, humans, minotaurs, centaurs, goblins, hobgoblins, draconians, gully dwarves, gnomes, and other races—races Palin had never before seen but had only read about. He saw what he thought were the souls of the Theiwar, the dark dwarves, a cursed race. He saw the souls of the Dimernesti, elves who live beneath the sea and whose very existence had long been disputed. He saw souls of the Thanoi, the strange and fearsome creatures of Ice Wall.
Friend and foe were here. Goblin souls passed shoulder to shoulder with human souls. Draconian souls drifted near elven souls. Minotaur and dwarf roamed side by side. No one soul paid attention to another. One was not aware of the other or seemed to know the other existed. Each ghostly soul went on his or her way, intent upon some quest—some hopeless quest by the looks of it, for on the face of every spirit Palin saw searching and longing, dejection and despair.
“I wonder what it is they’re all looking for,” Tasslehoff said.
“A way out,” replied Palin.
He slung over his shoulder a pack containing several loaves of the magicked bread and a waterskin. Making up his mind, not taking time to think for fear he would argue himself out of his decision, he walked to the Tower’s main door.
“Where are you going?” asked Tas.
“Out,” said Palin.
“Are you taking me with you?”
“Of course.”
Tas looked longingly at the door, but he held back, hovering near the stairs. “We’re not going back to the citadel to look for the Device of Time Journeying, are we?”
“What’s left of it?” Palin returned bitterly. “If any of it remained undamaged, which I doubt, the bits and pieces were probably picked up by Beryl’s draconians and are now in her possession.”
“That’s good,” Tas said, heaving a relieved sigh. Absorbed in arranging his pouches for the journey, he missed Palin’s withering glare. “Very well, I’ll go along. The Tower was an extremely interesting place to visit, and I’m glad we came here, but it does get boring after awhile. Where do you suppose Dalamar is? Why did he bring us here and then disappear?”
“To flaunt his power over me,” said Palin, coming to stand in front of the door. “He imagines that I am finished. He wants to break my spirit, force me to grovel to him, beg him to release me. He will find that he has caught a shark in his net, not a minnow. I had once thought he might be of some help to us, but no more. I will not be a pawn in his khas game.”
Palin looked very hard at the kender. “You don’t have any magical objects on you? Nothing you’ve discovered here in the Tower?”
“No, Palin,” said Tas with round-eyed innocence. “I haven’t discovered anything. Like I said, it’s been pretty boring.”
Palin persisted. “Nothing you’ve found that you are intending to return to Dalamar, for example? Nothing that fell into your pouches when you weren’t looking? Nothing that you picked up so that someone wouldn’t trip over it?”
“Well. . .” Tas scratched his head. “Maybe . . .”
“This is very important, Tas,” Palin said, his tone serious. He cast a glance out the window. “You see the dead out there? If we have anything magic, they will try to take it from us. Look, I have removed all my rings and my earring that Jenna gave me. I have left behind my pouches of spell components. Just to be safe, why don’t you leave your pouches here, as well? Dalamar will take good care of them,” he added in reassuring tones, for Tas was clutching his pouches next to his body and staring at him in horror.
“Leave my pouches?” Tas protested in agony. Palin might as well have asked the kender to leave his head or his topknot. “Will we come back for them?”
“Yes,” said Palin. Lies told to a kender are not really lies, more akin to self-defense.
“I guess . . . in that case . . . since it is important . . .” Tas removed his pouches, gave each of them a fond, parting pat, then stowed them safely in a dark corner beneath the stair. “I hope no one steals them.”
“I don’t think that’s likely. Stand over there by the stairs, Tas, where you will be out of the way, and do not interrupt me. I’m going to cast a spell. Alert me if you see anyone coming.”
“I’m the rear guard? You’re posting me as rear guard?” Tas was captivated and immediately forgot about the pouches. “No one ever posted me as rear guard before! Not even Tanis.”
“Yes, you’re the . . . er . . . rear guard. You must keep careful watch, and not bother me, no matter what you hear or see me doing.”
“Yes, Palin. I will,” Tasslehoff promised solemnly, and took up his position. He came bouncing back again. “Excuse me, Palin, but since we’re alone here, who is it I’m supposed to be rear-guarding against?”
Palin counseled patience to himself, then said, “If, for example, the wizard-lock includes magical guards, casting a counter-spell on the lock might cause these guardians to appear.”
Tas sucked in a breath. “Do you mean like skeletons and wraiths and liches? Oh, I hope so—that is, no I don’t,” he amended quickly, catching sight of Palin’s baleful expression. “I’ll keep watch. I promise.”
Tas retreated back to his post, but just as Palin was calling the words to the spell to his mind, he felt a tug on his sleeve.
“Yes, Tas?” Palin fought the temptation to toss the kender out the window. “What is it now?”
“Is it because you’re afraid of the wraiths and liches that you haven’t tried to escape before this?”
“No, Tas,” said Palin quietly. “It was because I was afraid of myself.”
Tas considered this. “I don’t think I can rear guard you against yourself, Palin.”
“You can’t, Tas,” Palin said. “Now return to your post.”
Palin figured that he had about fifteen seconds of peace before the novelty of being rear guard wore off and Tasslehoff would again be pestering him. Approaching the door, he closed his eyes and extended his hands.
He did not touch the door. He touched the magic that enchanted the door. His broken fingers . . . He remembered a time they had been long and delicate and supple. He felt for the magic, groped for it like a blind man. Sensing a tingling in his fingertips, his soul thrilled. He had found a thread of magic. He smoothed the thread and found another thread and another until the spell rippled beneath his touch. The fabric of the magic was smooth and sheer, a piece of cloth cut from a bolt and hung over the door.
The spell was not simple, but it was certainly not that complex. One of his better students could have undone this spell. Palin’s anger increased. Now his pride was hurt.
“You always did underestimate me,” Palin muttered to the absent Dalamar. He plucked a thread, and the fabric of magic came apart in his hands.
The door swung open.
Cool air, crisp with the sharp smell of the cypress, breathed into the Tower, as one might try to breathe life through the lips of a drowned man. The souls in the shadows of the trees ceased their aimless roaming, and hundreds turned as one to stare with their shadowed eyes at the Tower. None moved toward it. None made any attempt to approach it. They hung, wavering, in the whispering air.
“I will use no magic,” Palin told them. “I have only food in my pack, food and water. You will leave me alone.” He motioned to Tas, an unnecessary gesture, since the kender was now dancing at his side. “Keep near me, Tas. This is no time to go off exploring. We must not get separated.”