There was blood in Piper’s lungs. He heard it bubbling, swishing with every agonized breath he managed to draw. When he coughed, as he did now, small flecks of it stained his lips and then the cold hard ground. His thoughts, fragmented and scattered, drifted along the currents of pain. As though he could not bear to think on this moment, this place, this pain, Piper’s thoughts drifted to other places.
Hornfel’s pet mage. Aye. Piper had arrived at Thorbardin suddenly, and as bedraggled as a hound, three years ago. The storms had been raging that night: a wild summer battle in the sky, full of roaring thunder and blinding lightning. Piper still did not remember much about his arrival, though he’d heard the tale often enough. .
A member of the Guard of Watch at Southgate had nearly tripped over the mage. Sodden and barely breathing, he lay huddled in the lee of the breast-high wall where only the watch himself had stood a moment earlier.
“Like storm-leavings at the water’s edge,” the guard had said later, enthusiastically quenching his thirst with his fellows in the guard house. “I tell you, I thought that boy was dead.” That said, he drank deeply, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe he was and magicked himself back to life. You don’t ever know about a mage.”
Piper hadn’t been dead, though he had been as close to being dead as he thought he would ever like to come. Until now.
Piper swallowed only a little and tried not to breathe at all. He began to drag his broken right hand, inch by inch, down to his side. They hadn’t quite known what to do with him in Thorbardin. The captain of the Guard voiced the suspicion that the mage might well have been sent to spy out Thorbardin’s defenses, and so saying, found the solution to the problem of the mage on the doorstep.
There are prison cells deep and dark in Thorbardin, and Piper woke in one of them, shackled and wondering whether he had miscast a spell seriously enough to transport himself into the Abyss.
He’d only wanted to go to Haven, and that was no long leap from the Forest of Wayreth. No long leap in magic.
He’d known he was yet in the mortal plane when he discovered that his jailors outside his cell were dwarves. The dwarf who brought him his rations of warm water and dry bread was uncommunicative, answering his questions with a grunt or not at all. Though he once brought the mage warmer blankets against the cold and damp, the dwarf guard never said a word more and was careful that Piper’s hands were never free. Always, he thought, his eyes still shut against the pain, his hand growing strangely numb as he dragged it toward the flute, always they know about a mage’s hands.
After two days, Piper was brought before the Council of Thanes. Still bound and shackled for fear that he would try to defend himself with magic, or charm the council into believing him innocent of the charge of spying, Piper told his story of a transport spell gone awry to the six thanes in their great council chamber.
They wrangled long over the issue, as they were accustomed to do over almost any matter. “Spy!” some cried. Others had their doubts about that charge, but were not inclined to be understanding or absolve the mage of the sin of trespassing in the dwarven holdings. Dragons flew the skies of Krynn openly now, and armies were massing for war in the Outlands. If they could not be certain that Piper was innocent of the charge of spying, the Council of Thanes would happily consign him to the dungeons and iron shackles for the rest of his life, thereby settling the matter to everyone’s satisfaction except Piper’s.
Only one of the thanes had even considered the matter of Piper’s freedom. That one was Hornfel, and he argued hard for the sake of the young human whose disarming innocence and genuine goodwill, coupled with the tale of miscast magic, moved him. Hornfel pledged his own word as bond for the mage and so pledging, bought Piper’s freedom. Piper, his hand wholly numb now, knew he’d touched the flute when he felt it roll against his side. He listened to the wash of his own blood in his lungs and seemed to hear Hornfel’s bemused sigh again.
“I usually judge a man aright the first time. But know this, young Jordy: you are the keeper of my word now. See that you keep it well.”
Jordy had thought then that he’d have no trouble keeping Hornfel’s pledge. He instinctively liked the dwarf and owed him his freedom. He was also fascinated by Thorbardin, where few humans had come before now. Jordy spoke impulsively and never regretted that he did.
“We’ll trade pledges, sir,” Jordy had said gravely to the dwarf who had saved him from the endless cold and darkness of Thorbardin’s dungeons,
“I’m in your debt and, if you’ll have me, in your service.”
In those two years, the young man was called by some Jordy, by others Hornfel’s pet mage. Then, the children who ran in Thorbardin’s streets and great gardens, delighted by the blond giant’s music, began to call him Piper. The mage had found his by-name, a thane and lord to serve, and, though he wasn’t looking for one, a home.
Piper, sweating in the cold dawn, marshalled all his strength and, with his forearm, nudged the flute carefully out and away from his side. It lay near his shoulder now. Bracing his feet against the hard ground, he did a slow, painful bend and grasped the scooped lip of the instrument in his teeth.
One of the Theiwar laughed, a sound like wind howling around barrows. Piper straightened. When he did, a broken rib moved in his lung, tearing and tearing. Blood leaked into the place where air should have been. He had no breath left for the complicated spells now. He had no time left either.
A spell, he thought, swift and sure to get me out of here!
A transport spell. Not to take him far, he hadn’t the strength for that, but just to hide him well in the forest where they would have to search for him. It was likely not all of them will search, he thought as he slowly, painfully filled his lungs with air. However, Stanach might hear them and be warned long before he sees them.
Piper closed his eyes and thought of a glade he knew deep in the woods, near the borders of Elvenwood. These Theiwar would search long and far before they ventured too close to haunted Qualinesti. Three notes he needed, all low and sounding like wind when it sweeps through the grass. Three words of magic. The words he had and the breath he found.
For a timeless space Piper felt no pain, no need to breathe. All sense of being drained away, like the tide dragging away from a shore, as Piper rode the music.
12
The mid-morning sun shone thin and bright, offering little warmth. Its light arrowed down between the eaves of the tallest trees, rebounding like gleaming silver darts from the last shivering brown and red leaves of the underbrush. A cold breeze carried the rich scent of damp earth and moldering leaves through the forest. Little more than a deer trail, the path often seemed invisible to Kelida, like something Tyorl followed more by instinct than sight.
Tyorl moved first down the narrow, shadow-dappled path; Stanach next; Kelida behind him. Lavim followed last and only occasionally. Like an old dog in new territory, the kender ranged the forest on either side of the trail. No thicket, glade, beck, or stone outcropping of the slightest interest was left uninvestigated Though Lavim had long before given up trying to call these fascinating landmarks to his companions’ attention, he kept up a running commentary in a voice that still seemed too deep to Kelida for one of his small stature, but one that clearly spoke of the kender’s pleasure in his surroundings and the sunny day.
“Damn good thing we’re not trying to get through this wretched forest without anyone knowing,” Stanach muttered.
Kelida smiled. Tyorl had made a similar comment moments before. For her part, she enjoyed the kender’s delight. His cries of discovery ran like a tuneless, rhymeless trailsong through what would have been a silent journey were it left to Tyorl to provide conversation. Stanach was not to be looked to for anything but dour silence.