“If that is true, what does it mean?” Jenna pondered.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” Palin said raggedly. He pointed at Tasslehoff. “This is Tas’s fault. Everything that has happened is his fault.”
“Why? What does he have to do with it?”
“Because he’s not dead!” Palin said, hissing the words through clenched teeth. “He changed time by not dying! The future he saw was the future that happened because he died and by his death, we were able to defeat Chaos. But he’s not dead! We didn’t defeat Chaos. The Father of All and Nothing banished his children, the gods, and these past forty years of death and turmoil have been the result!”
Jenna looked at Tas. Palin was looking at Tas, this time as if he’d grown five heads, wings and a tail.
“Let’s all have another drink of brandy,” Tas suggested, taking his own advice. “Just to make us feel better. Clear our heads,” he added pointedly.
“You could be right, Palin,” Jenna said thoughtfully.
“I know I’m right!” he said grimly.
“And we all know that two rights make a wrong,” Tas observed helpfully. “Would anyone like oatmeal?”
“What other explanation could there be?” Palin continued, ignoring the kender.
“I’m not sure,” said Tas, backing up a few steps toward the kitchen door, “but if you give me a moment, I’ll bet I could think of several.”
Palin threw off the blanket and rose to his feet. “We have to send Tas back to die.”
“Palin, I’m not so sure. . .” Jenna began, but he wasn’t listening to her.
“Where’s the device?” he demanded feverishly. “What happened to it?”
“While it is true,” Tas said, “that I had promised Fizban I would go back in time for the giant to step on me, the more I think about that part of it, the less I like it. For while being stepped on by a giant might be extremely interesting, it would be interesting for only a few seconds at most, and then as you said I would be dead.”
Tas bumped up against the kitchen door.
“And while I’ve never been dead,” he continued, “I’ve seen people being dead before, and I must say that it looks like about the most uninteresting thing that could happen to a person.”
“Where is the device?” Palin demanded.
“It rolled into the ashes!” Tas cried and pointed at the fireplace. He took another gulp of brandy.
“I’ll look,” Jenna offered. Seizing the poker, she began to sift through the ashes.
Palin peered over her shoulder. “We must find it!”
Tasslehoff put his hand in his pocket and, taking hold of the Device of Time Journeying, he began to turn it and twist it and slide it, all the while speaking the rhyme under his breath.
“‘Thy time is thy own, though across it you travel. . .’”
“Are you sure it went under here, Tas?” Jenna asked. “Because I can’t see anything except cinders—”
Tas spoke faster, his nimble fingers working swiftly.
“ ‘Whirling across forever. Obstruct not its flow,’ ” he whispered.
This was going to be the tricky part.
Palin’s head jerked up. Turning around, he made a diving leap for the kender.
Tas whipped the device out of his pocket and held it up. “Destiny be over your own head!” he cried, and he was pleased to realize, as time rolled up the kitchen, the brandy flask, and him along with it, that he had just made a very pithy remark.
“The little weasel,” said Jenna, looking at the empty place on the floor where the kender had once been standing. “So he had the device all along.”
“My gods!” Palin gasped, “what have I done?”
“Scared the oatmeal out of him, unless I’m much mistaken,”
Jenna returned. “Which is quite an accomplishment, considering he’s a kender. I don’t blame him,” she added, scrubbing her soot-covered hands vigorously on a towel. “If you had shouted at me like that, I would have run, too.”
“I’m not a monster,” Palin said, exasperated. “I am scared! I don’t mind admitting it.” He pressed his hand over his heart.
“The fear is here, worse than anything I’ve ever known, even during the dark days of my captivity. Something strange and terrible has happened to the world, Jenna, and I don’t understand what!” His fists clenched. “The kender is the cause. I’m sure of it!”
“If so, we better find him,” said Jenna practically. “Where do you think he would have gone? Not back in time?”
“If he has, we’ll never locate him. But I don’t think he would,”
Palin said, pondering. “He wouldn’t go back because if he did, he’d wind up exactly where he doesn’t want to be—dead. I believe he’s still in the present. Then where would he go?”
“To someone who would protect him from you,” said Jenna bluntly.
“Goldmoon,” said Palin. “He talked about wanting to see her only moments before he left. Or Laurana. He’s already been to see Laurana. Knowing Tas, though, he’d want some new adventure. I will travel to the Citadel of Light. I would like to discuss what I have seen with Goldmoon anyhow.”
“I’ll loan you one of my magical rings to speed you across the miles,” Jenna said, tugging the ring off her finger. “Meanwhile, I will send a message to Laurana, warning her to watch for the kender and if he shows up on her doorstep, to hang onto him.”
Palin accepted the ring. “Warn her to be cautious of what she says and does,” he added, his expression troubled. “I believe that there may be a traitor in her household. Either that or the Neraka Knights have found some way to spy on her. Will you. . .” He paused, swallowed. “Will you stop by the Inn and tell Usha . . . tell her. . . ”
“I’ll tell her you’re not a monster,” said Jenna, patting his arm with a smile. She looked at him intently, frowning in anxiety. “ Are you certain you are well enough for this?”
“I was not injured. Only shocked. I can’t say that’s wearing off, but I’ll be well enough to make the journey.” He looked curiously at the ring. “How does this work?”
“Not all that well anymore,” said Jenna wryly. “It will take you two or three jumps to reach your destination. Place the ring on the middle finger of your left hand. That’s close enough,” she added, seeing Palin struggle to ease it over a swollen joint. “Put your right hand over the ring and conjure up the image of where you want to be. Keep that image in your mind, repeat it to yourself over and over again. I want that ring back, by the way.”
“Certainly.” He smiled at her wanly. “Farewell, Jenna. Thank you for your help. I’ll keep you informed.”
He placed his hand over the ring and began to picture in his mind the crystal rainbow domes of the Citadel of Light.
“Palin,” Jenna said suddenly, “I haven’t been entirely honest with you. I may have an idea where to find Dalamar.”
“Good,” Palin replied. “My father was right. We need him.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Hedge Maze
The gnome was lost in the hedge maze.
This was nothing unusual. The gnome was frequently lost in the hedge maze. In fact, whenever anyone in the Citadel of Light wanted the gnome (which wasn’t often) and asked where he was, the response was invariably, “Lost in the hedge maze.”
The gnome did not wander the hedge maze aimlessly. Far from it. He entered the hedge maze daily with a set purpose, a mission, and that was to make a map of the maze. The gnome, who belonged to the Guild of PuzzlesRiddlesEnigmasRebusLogogriphsMonogramsAnagramsAcrosticsCrosswordsMazesLabyrinthsParadoxesScrabbleFeminineLogicandPoliticians, otherwise known as P3 for short, knew of a certainty that if he could map the hedge maze, he would find in that map the key to the Great Mysteries of Life, among these being: Why Is It That When You Wash Two Socks You Only End Up With One? Is There Life After Death? and Where Did The Other Sock Go? The gnome was convinced that if you found the answer to the second question you would also find the answer to the third.