I considered telling him that Fizban could get us all to Lord Gunthar's much, much faster, if he wanted to cast one of his spells on us. Then I thought that with Fizban's spells, all things considered (especially my eyebrows), we might end up in the middle of the Hot Springs. And maybe Fizban thought the same thing because he didn't mention his spells either. So we set off, with Owen Glendower carrying the dragonlances and me carrying my pouches and Fizban carrying a tune, sort of.
And, praise be to any and all of the gods, we did NOT go back to Huma's Tomb!
CHAPTER SIX
Let me point out right here and now that it wasn't my fault we ended up in the Wasted Lands. I had a map and I told Fizban and Sir Owen we were heading the wrong direction. (It was a perfectly good map: if Tarsis By the Sea chose to get itself landlocked, I don't see how anyone can blame me for it!)
It was night. We were wandering around in the mountains when we came to a pass. I told Fizban that we should go left. That would lead us out of the mountains and take us to Sancrist. But Fizban scoffed and said my map was outdated (outdated!) and Owen Glendower vowed he'd shave his moustaches before he ever took advice from a kender. (Which seemed a fairly safe vow to me, considering that he didn't have all that much yet to shave.) This after he'd admitted that he'd gotten himself all turned around in Foghaven Vale and wasn't real sure where he was now!
He said that we should wait until morning and that when the sun came up we'd know what direction to take, but Fizban said he had a feeling in his bones that the sun wouldn't come up in the morning, and, by gosh, he was right. The sun didn't come up or if it did we missed it what with the snow and all.
So we turned right when we should have turned left and came to the Wasted Lands and the adventure, but this isn't the adventure's proper place in the story yet, so it'll have to wait its turn.
I could tell you about the days we spent traveling through the mountains in the snow but, to be honest, that part wasn't very exciting… if you don't count Fizban accidentally melting our snow shelter down around us one night while he was trying to read his spell book by the light of a magical candle that turned out to be more magic than candle. (I got to keep the wick)
One nice thing about that time was traveling with Owen Glendower. I was getting to like the knight a lot. He said he didn't even mind being around me much (which may not sound very gracious to you but is a lot more than I expected).
"Probably," he said, "because I don't have many valuables to lose."
I didn't quite understand that last part, especially since he kept losing what he said was his most treasured possession: a very beautiful little painting of his wife and son that he carried in a small leather pouch over his left breast underneath his armor.
He discovered it missing one night when we were relaxing in our snow shelter (the one Fizban melted) and we all hunted for the painting most diligently. It was right when Owen said he was going to turn me upside down and maybe inside out if I didn't give it back to him that Fizban happened to find the painting inside my shirt pocket.
"See there," I said, handing it back to Owen, "I kept it from getting wet."
He wasn't the least appreciative. For a minute I thought he was going to throw me out off the side of the mountain and for a minute he thought he was going to, too. But after a while he calmed down, especially when I told him that the lady inside the painting was one of the prettiest ladies I'd ever seen, next to Tika and Laurana and a certain kender maid I know whose name is engraved forever on my heart. (If I could remember it, I'd tell you, but I guess that it isn't important right now.)
Owen sighed and said he was sorry he shouted at me and he wasn't really going to slit my pockets or maybe my gut, whichever came first. It was only that he missed his wife and son so much and was so very worried about them because he was here in the snow with us and the dragonlances, and his wife and son were back in their house alone without him.
Well, I understood that, even if I didn't have a wife or a son or a house anymore. We made an agreement then and there. If I found the painting I was to give it right back to him immediately.
And it was amazing to me that he lost that painting as often as he did, considering how much it meant to him. But I didn't mention this to him, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. As I said, I was beginning to like Owen Glendower.
"Life hasn't been easy for my lady wife," he told us one other night while we were thawing out after having spent the day trekking about lost in the snow. "From what you've told me about your friend Brightblade, you know how the knights have been persecuted and reviled. My family was driven from our ancestral home years ago, but it was a point of honor among us that someday we would return to claim it. Our holdings have passed from one bad owner to the next. The people in the village have suffered under their tyrannies and though they were the ones who drove us out, they have more than paid for that now.
"I worked as a mercenary, to keep body and soul alive, and to earn the money to buy back lawfully what had been stolen from us. For I would be honorable, though the thieves that took it were not.
"At last, I was able to save the necessary sum. I am ashamed to say that I was forced to keep my identity as a knight secret, lest the owners refuse to sell to me."
He touched his moustaches as he said this. They were coming out fairly well, now, and were dark red as his hair.
"As it was, the thieves made a good bargain, for the manor was crumbling around their ears. We have repaired it ourselves, for I could not afford to hire the work done. The villagers helped. They were glad to see a knight return, especially in these dangerous times.
"My wife and son toiled beside me, both doing far more than their share. My wife's hands are rough and cracked from breaking stone and mixing mortar, but to me their touch is as soft as if she wrapped them in kid gloves every night of her life. Now she stands guard while I am gone, she and my boy. I did not like to leave them, with evil abroad in the land, but my duty lay with the knights, as she herself reminded me. I pray Paladine watches over them and keeps them safe."
"He does," said Fizban, only he said it very, very softly, so softly that I almost didn't hear him. And I might not have if I hadn't felt a snuffle coming on and so was searching in his pouch for a handkerchief.
Owen could tell the most interesting stories about when he was a mercenary and he said I was as good a listener as his son, though I asked too many questions.
We went on like this and were really having a good time and so I guess I have to admit that I didn't really mind that we took the wrong way. We'd been wandering around lost for about four days when it quit snowing and the sun came back.
Owen looked at the sun and frowned and said it was on the wrong side of the mountains.
I tried to be helpful and cheer him up. "If Tarsis By the Sea could move itself away from the sea, maybe these mountains hopped around, too."
But Owen didn't think much of my suggestion. He only looked very worried and grim. We were in the Wasted Lands, he said, and the bay we could see below us (Did I mention it? There was a bay below us.) was called Morgash Bay, which meant Bay of Darkness and that, all in all, we were in a Bad Place and should leave immediately, before it Got Worse.
"This is all your fault!" Fizban yelled at me and stamped his foot on the snow. "You and that stupid map."
"No, it isn't my fault!" I retorted. (Another good word — retorted.) "And it isn't a stupid map."
"Yes, it is!" Fizban shouted and he snatched his hat off his head and threw it on the snow and began to stomp up and down on top of it. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Right then, things Got Worse.