Tasslehoff didn’t offer sleep much of a fight this night. Worn out from the rigors of travel and the excitement and snuffles occasioned by Caramon’s funeral, Tas lost the battle without a struggle. He woke to find that not only had sleep stolen in on him but that Gerard had done the same. The Knight stood over him, glaring down with his customary grim expression, which looked considerably grimmer by lantern light.
“Get up,” said the Knight. “Put these on.”
Gerard handed Tas some clothes that were clean and well-made, drab, dull and—the kender shuddered—serviceable.
“Thank you,” said Tas, rubbing his eyes. “I know you mean well, but I have my own clothes—”
“I won’t travel with someone who looks as if he had been in a fight with a Maypole and lost,” Gerard countered. “ A blind gully dwarf could see you from six miles off. Put these on, and be quick about it.”
“A fight with a Maypole,” Tas giggled. “I actually saw one of those once. It was at this Mayday celebration in Solace. Caramon put on a wig and petticoats and went out to dance with the young virgins, only his wig slipped over his eye—”
Gerard held up a stem finger. “Rule number one. No talking.”
Tas opened his mouth to explain that he wasn’t really talking, not talking as in talking, but talking as in telling a story, which was quite a different thing altogether. Before Tas was able to get a word out, Gerard displayed the gag.
Tasslehoff sighed. He enjoyed traveling, and he was truly looking forward to this adventure, but he did feel that he might have been granted a more congenial traveling companion. He sadly relinquished his colorful clothes, laying them on the bed with a fond pat, and dressed himself in the brown knickers, the brown wool socks, the brown shirt, and brown vest Gerard had laid out for him. Tas, looking down at himself, thought sadly that he looked exactly like a tree stump. He started to put his hands in his pockets when he discovered there weren’t any.
“No pouches, either,” said Gerard, picking up Tasslehoff’s bags and pouches and preparing to add them to the pile of discarded clothing.
“Now, see here—” Tas began sternly.
One of the pouches fell open. The light from the lantern glittered merrily on the gleaming, winking jewels of the Device of Time Journeying.
“Oops,” said Tasslehoff as innocently as ever he could and indeed he was innocent, this time at least.
“How did you get this away from me?” Gerard demanded.
Tasslehoff shrugged and, pointing to his sealed lips, shook his head.
“If I ask you a question, you may answer,” Gerard stated, glowering. “When did you steal this from me?”
“I didn’t steal it,” Tas replied with dignity. “Stealing is extremely bad. I told you. The device keeps coming back to me. It’s not my fault. I don’t want it. I had a stem talk with it last night, in fact, but it doesn’t seem to listen.”
Gerard glared, then, muttering beneath his breath—something to the effect that he didn’t know why he bothered—he thrust the magical device in a leather pouch he wore at his side.
“And it had better stay there,” he said grimly.
“Yes, you’d better do what the Knight says!” Tas added loudly, shaking his finger at the device. He was rewarded for his help by having the gag tied around his mouth.
The gag in place, Gerard snapped a pair of manacles over Tas’s wrists. Tas would have slipped right out of ordinary manacles, but these manacles were specially made for a kender’s slender wrists, or so it appeared. Tas worked and worked and couldn’t free himself. Gerard laid a heavy hand on the kender’s shoulder and marched him out of the room and down the hall.
The sun had not yet made an appearance. The garrison was dark and quiet. Gerard allowed Tas time to wash his face and hands—he had to wash around the gag—and do whatever else he needed to do, keeping close watch on him all the time and not allowing the kender a moment’s privacy. He then escorted him out of the building.
Gerard wore a long, enveloping cloak over his armor. Tas couldn’t see the armor beneath the cloak, and he knew the Knight was wearing armor only because he heard it clank and rattle:
Gerard did not wear a helm or carry a sword. He walked the kender back to the Knights’ quarters, where Gerard picked up a large knapsack and what could have been a sword wrapped up in a blanket tied with rope.
Gerard then marched Tasslehoff, bound and gagged, to the front of the garrison. The sun was a tiny sliver of light on the horizon and then it was swallowed by a cloudbank, so that it seemed as if the sun were starting to rise and had suddenly changed its mind and gone back to bed.
Gerard handed a paper to the Captain of the Guard. “As you can see, sir, I have Lord Warren’s permission to remove the prisoner.”
The captain glanced at it and then at the kender. Gerard, Tas noticed, was careful to keep out of the light of the flaring torches mounted on the wooden posts on either side of the gate. Instantly the idea came to Tas that Gerard was trying to hide something.
The kender’s curiosity was aroused, an occurrence that often proves fatal to the kender and also to those who happen to be a kender’s companions. Tas stared with all his might, trying to see what was so interesting beneath the cloak.
He was in luck. The morning breeze came up. The cloak fluttered slightly. Gerard caught it quickly, held it fastened in front of him, but not before Tasslehoff had seen the torchlight shine on armor that was gleaming black.
Under normal circumstances Tas would have demanded loudly and excitedly to know why a Solamnic Knight was wearing black armor. The kender probably would have tugged on the cloak in order to obtain a better view and pointed out this odd and interesting fact to the captain of the guard. The gag prevented Tas from saying any of this except in muffled and incoherent squeaks and “mfrts,” which was all he could manage.
On second thought—and it was due solely to the gag that Tasslehoff actually had a second thought—the kender realized that perhaps Gerard might not want anyone to know he was wearing black armor. Thus, the cloak.
Quite charmed by this new twist to the adventure, Tasslehoff kept silent, merely letting Gerard know with several cunning winks that he, the kender, was in on the secret.
“Where are you taking the little weasel?” the captain asked, handing the paper back to Gerard. “And what’s wrong with his eye? He hasn’t got pink eye, has he?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir. Begging the captain’s pardon, but I can’t tell you where I’m ordered to deliver the kender, sir. That information is secret,” Gerard replied respectfully. Lowering his voice, he added, “He’s the one who was caught desecrating the tomb, sir.”
The captain nodded in understanding. He glanced askance at the bundles the Knight was carrying. “What’s that?”
“Evidence, sir,” Gerard replied.
The captain looked very grim. “Did a lot of damage, did he? I trust they’ll make an example of him.”
“I should think they might, sir,” Gerard replied evenly.
The captain waved Gerard and Tas through the gate, paid no further attention to them. Gerard hustled the kender away from the garrison and out onto the main road. Although the morning itself wasn’t quite awake yet, many people were. Farmers were bringing in their goods to market. Wagons were rolling out to the logging camps in the mountains. Anglers were heading for Crystalmir Lake. People cast a few curious glances at the cloaked Knight—the morning was already quite warm. Busy with their own cares, they passed by without comment. If he wanted to swelter, that was his concern. None of them so much as looked twice at Tasslehoff. The sight of a bound and gagged kender was nothing new.
Gerard and Tas took the road south out of Solace, a road that meandered alongside the Sentinel range of mountains and would eventually deposit them in South Pass. The sun had finally decided to crawl out of bed. Pink light spread in a colorful wash across the sky. Gold gilded the tree leaves, and diamonds of dew sparkled on the grass. A fine day for adventuring, and Tas would have enjoyed himself immensely but for the fact that he was hustled along and harried and not permitted to stop to look at anything along the road.