“Me?” Tas said, astonished. “An important mission to find me-Tasslehoff Burrfoot?”
“There’s someone who wants to meet you. I promise,” Brian added gravely, “on my honor as a knight that when I have taken you to talk to our friend, I will help you rescue your friends.”
“Derek’s not going to like that,” Aran predicted with a grin.
Brian shrugged.
“An important mission!” breathed Tasslehoff. “Wait until I tell Flint. Yes, sure, I’ll come with you. I wouldn’t want to disappoint your friend. Who is your friend anyway? Why does he want to see me? Where are we going? Will he be there when we arrive? How did you know where to find me?”
“We’ll explain everything later,” said Aran. “We have to hurry.”
Aran took hold of Tas by one arm, Brian grabbed him by the other, and they hustled him down the street.
5
Magical glasses. The word “chromatic”. Love amid the dust
Lillith was waiting for them at the entrance to the library. Her face brightened when Aran and Brian deposited the kender on the ground in front of her.
“You found him! I’m so glad,” Lillith said, relieved. “Tasslehoff Burrfoot,” said the kender, reaching out his hand.
“Lillith Hallmark,” she returned, taking his hand in hers and pressing it warmly. “I am so very honored to meet you, Master Burrfoot.”
Tas flushed with pleasure at this.
“We should not be standing out in the open,” Derek warned. “Take him into the library.”
“Yes, you’re right. Come inside.” Lillith led the way. The kender followed her, delighted with the wonder of this unexpected adventure.
“A library! I love libraries. I’m not usually permitted inside them, however. I tried to visit the Great Library of Palanthas once, but I was told they don’t allow kender. Why is that, Lillith, do you know? I thought maybe they had made a mistake and what they meant to say was that they didn’t allow ogres, which I can understand, and I tried to crawl in through a window, so as not to bother anyone at the door, but I got stuck, and the Pathetics had to come help me—”
“Aesthetics,” Lillith corrected, smiling.
“Yes, them, too,” said Tas. “Anyway, I found out the rule doesn’t say anything about ogres, but it does say ‘no kender’. I’m very glad you admit kender.”
“We don’t as a general policy,” said Lillith, “but in your case, we’ll make an exception.”
By this time, they’d descended the stairs into the library proper. Tasslehoff stood quite still, staring around in awe. Lillith kept her hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you very much, gentlemen, for bringing him, and now, if you could excuse us, I must speak with Master Burrfoot in private.” Lillith added in apologetic tones, “As I told you, this is not my secret.”
“Secret?” said Tas eagerly.
“Of course, Mistress,” said Derek. He hesitated then added, “You mentioned something about Burrfoot being able to assist us—”
“I will let you know if he can or not,” Lillith assured him. “That’s part of the secret.”
“I’m extremely good at keeping secrets,” Tas announced. “What secret am I keeping?”
Derek bowed in acknowledgement, then headed for the back of the library. Aran and Brian accompanied him, and Lillith soon lost sight of them among the shelves. The sound of their footfalls grew muffled and faint, though she could still hear Aran’s laughter, resounding through the building, shaking the dust from the books.
“Come, sit down,” said Lillith, guiding Tas to a chair. She sat down beside him and drew her chair close to his. “I have a very important question to ask you. The answer is very important to me and to many other people, Tasslehoff, so I want you to think very carefully before you reply. I want to know—do you have with you the Glasses of Arcanist?”
“The what of who?” Tasslehoff asked, puzzled.
“The Glasses of Arcanist.”
“Did this Arcanist say I took them?” Tas demanded, indignant at the accusation. “Because I didn’t! I never take anything that’s not mine.”
“I have a friend, a very good friend named Evenstar, who says that you found the glasses in the floating tomb of King Duncan in Thorbardin. He says you dropped them, and he picked them up and gave them back to you—”
“Oh!” Tas leaped up in excitement. “You mean my Special Magical Glasses for Reading Stuff! Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Yes, I think I have them somewhere. Would you like me to look?”
“Yes, please,” said Lillith, alarmed at the kender’s cavalier attitude, but she reminded herself, he is a kender, and the gold dragon knew that when he allowed him to keep the glasses.
“I hope you haven’t told anyone about Evenstar,” said Lillith, watching in growing concern as Tas started upending his pouches and dumping their contents onto the floor. She knew kender picked up all manner of various and assorted trinkets and treasures, ranging from the valuable to the ridiculous and everything in between. But she hadn’t quite realized the vast extent of a kender’s holdings until she saw it piling up on the floor. “Our friend could get into a lot of trouble if anyone knew he was helping us.”
“I haven’t said a word about meeting a golden… woolly mammoth,” Tasslehoff replied. “You see, we were in Duncan’s tomb—my friend, Flint, and I and there was this dwarf who said he was Kharas, only then we found the real Kharas and he was dead—extremely dead. So we wondered who the dwarf was really and I’d found these glasses inside the tomb and I put them on and when I looked through the lenses at the dwarf, he wasn’t a dwarf, he was a golden… woolly mammoth.”
He gave her a pitiful glance. “You see how it is? When I tried to tell anyone that I met a golden… woolly mammoth… it always comes out… woolly mammoth. I can’t say… woolly mammoth.”
“Ah, I see,” said Lillith in understanding.
The golden dragon had apparently found a way to keep even a kender’s lips sealed on his secret, a secret he had since revealed, but only to the Aesthetics.
Many years ago, the good dragons had awakened to find their eggs had been stolen away from them by the dragons of Queen Takhisis. Using their eggs as hostages, the Queen forced the good dragons to promise they would not take part in the upcoming war. Fearing for the fate of their young, the good dragons agreed, though there were some among their number who advocated strongly that this was the wrong course. Evenstar had been one of these. He had spoken out forcefully against such appeasement and had vowed that he would not feel bound by any such oath. He had been punished for his rebellion. He had been banished to the Floating Tomb of King Duncan in Thorbardin, there to guard the Hammer of Kharas.
Two dwarves, Flint Fireforge and Arman Kharas, accompanied by Tasslehoff, had recently discovered the sacred hammer and restored it to the dwarves, freeing Evenstar from his prison. While in the tomb, Tasslehoff had encountered Evenstar, who questioned the kender about the situation in the world. What he heard greatly disturbed Evenstar, especially when he learned that an evil new race known as draconians had appeared on Krynn. A terrible suspicion was growing in his mind as to the fate of the young metallic dragons. Evenstar did not yet dare reveal himself. If the forces of darkness knew that a golden dragon was awake and watching the doings of the dark Queen, she would send her evil dragons after him, and, because he was isolated and alone, he would be no match for them. Thus he had found this magical method to make a kender keep a secret.
“The next time I looked through the glasses we were in a great big hall I can’t recall the name of and the dwarves were fighting Dragon Highlord Verminaard, only he was supposed to be dead, so I looked at him through the glasses and he wasn’t Verminaard at all. He was a draconian!”
Tas had plopped himself down on the floor and was sorting through his valuable possessions as he talked, searching for the glasses. Lillith realized in dismay that this search could take a considerable amount of time, since the kender could not pick up anything without examining it and showing it to her and telling her all about how he’d come by it and what it did and what he planned to do with it.