When my Uncle Trapspringer set out on his first great adventure his sister, Ripple, went along to keep him company. They were approaching Lytburg when they saw some soldiers who spied them at the same time…
"Kender!" the soldier shouted, pointing toward Trap-springer and Ripple Fargo who had just rounded a bend in the dusty road. The warning alerted the rest of the troop, who were taking advantage of the forest shade to rest and eat a midday meal. The soldiers tossed food and flasks aside as they jumped to their feet, most dashing for their horses.
"Wow, look, they certainly seem glad to see us," said Trap, as his family called him. He watched the soldiers run into each other as they tried to reach their mounts.
"Lytburg must be a friendly place," his sister, Ripple, replied. She waved at the few soldiers who were still staring in their direction, then brushed at the road dust on her leather leggings and boots and swept a hand from her forehead to her top knot, checking to see if any tendrils had worked loose.
"I told you we should have found a stream and washed away the dust from the road," she said. "It's the least we could have done for people who are glad to see us. I'm so glad they are here, I've been so tired of not seeing anyone on the road, and they're eating, do you think they might share some of their food with us?" She gave a skip as she walked at her brother's side.
The soldiers certainly were excited. The first to reach his horse was obviously the leader of the troop. He wore a shining, ornately trimmed helmet and a glittering coat of chain mail while the others wore metal-trimmed, hardened leather breastplates. He jerked the reins before he had his right foot set in the stirrup. His mount shied and the rider slid sideways in the saddle. The other rushing men, the sidling horses, and an off-balance rider threw the leader's mount into a panic. He bucked and turned, blocking the next two riders as they tried to pass him.
Trap and Ripple watched, fascinated. As the horse sidled back and forth, the leader's armor sparkled in the sun and reflected small sunbeams onto the road and into the deep shade of the forest. The kender were so busy enjoying the show that they missed seeing the archers who had eschewed their mounts and crept nearer using the bushes for cover. Both kender forgot the struggling rider when an arrow whizzed by Trap's shoulder.
"That's not friendly!" Ripple gasped, her eyes wide.
"They've made a mistake!" Trap said. Neither he nor his sister had done anything to incur the wrath of the patrol. Still, the soldiers seemed too intent on shooting them to listen to explanations. He grabbed Ripple's arm and jerked her away as a shower of arrows arose from the underbrush.
He led the way as they raced a few paces up the road. They would never be able to outrun arrows, so he jerked Ripple to the right and pulled her into the underbrush close to the side of the road. The showers of arrows continued. Trap felt a thud as an arrow struck him. He had not even felt the pain. He released Ripple's hand as he gingerly felt for a wound.
"It hit your bedroll," she told him and led the way into the denser undergrowth.
Behind them they heard pounding hooves and running feet followed by the sound of snapping branches. Another shower of arrows arced through the forest. The sharp metal points pierced soft bark or ricocheted off the tough old trunks.
"Up," Trap said as they reached a huge ancient oak and dashed around to the northern side, opposite their pursuers. At his gesture she cupped her hands and bent her knees. He stepped into the stirrup she provided and she jerked herself upright as he straightened his knees. Their combined force threw Trap high enough to grab the lowest limb. He locked his feet around the limb and dropped, his arms extended as he reached down for Ripple. She swarmed up his body until she stood on the limb. Then she lowered a hand to pull him up.
Working together, they reached the higher limbs and lay flat while the soldiers beat the bushes below. Long, breathless minutes passed before the determined searchers moved out of sight, deeper into the forest.
Trap and Ripple climbed down again, dropped from the last limb and worked their way west through the thick undergrowth that bordered the road. When they were a few hundred yards away from where the soldiers searched, the two kender crossed the beaten track and entered the woods to the south. Safe for the moment, they followed a creek until they reached a beaver's dam. They sat on a log to rest, to the indignation of the beaver who had just cut down the tree.
"I don't understand," Ripple shook her head. "No one could be angry at us."
"They didn't want us. They said 'kender,' " Trap reminded her. "Either they don't like any kender or…"
"That's not possible," Ripple interrupted. The entire race of kender took justifiable pride in being the friendliest people on Krynn.
"Or… do you think there might be kender outlaws?"
Neither had ever considered the possibility. They occasionally heard tales, most of which they discounted as soon as the stories accused kender of "stealing."
Trap and Ripple knew that every other civilized race on Krynn considered kender to be thieves. Their racial reputation was totally justified, of course, just as it was patently untrue. Kender were not thieves, they were handlers. Their curiosity and their insatiable desire to poke and pry and touch led them to handle anything they could pick up. That same curiosity could draw their attention away from what they held. Anxious for some new experience, they often, and quite unintentionally, tucked the articles into their pouches. The oversight usually came from a desire to free their hands for something new, and they often found themselves with items they could not remember acquiring. In a kender city, an oddly shaped rock or piece of glass, knife, scarf, or dish could have a hundred owners in a busy week. Outside their own lands they had learned to make up excuses for unexplained possessions.
"I was keeping it for you."
"It must have fallen in my pouch," or
"You must have put it in my pouch by mistake," were three of the most common used to races who did not understand the kender habit of handling. If the owner of a purloined object wanted it back, the kender cheerfully returned it.
"What should we do?" Ripple asked, her brow wrinkling in disappointment. "I wanted to see the city."
Trap understood his sister's feelings. They had been born and raised in Legup, a village in the mountains of Hylo, and like the rest of the Fargo family, as soon as they had reached adulthood they were stricken with wander-lust and had set out to see the world. They had yet to see a city of humans and dwarves firsthand.
Their great-grandfather had walked east from Legup to Solamnia and south to Kaolyn and Abanasinia. After the Cataclysm the geography of Krynn had changed, and now an unnamed sea divided Northern Ergoth and Hylo from Solamnia and its political and geographical neighbors to the south and east.
Trap and Ripple had left the port of Hylo by ship, intending to travel across the channel to one of the port towns in Solamnia. A sudden storm had blown the ship south. The wind screamed through the sails and the sea men dangled from the masts and spars in an attempt to trim the sails. The kender found the trip exciting, but as the storm blew itself out they grew bored. At the first opportunity they asked to be put ashore. The captain was glad to do so after he lost his favorite knife, a carved and silver chased inkwell and several maps. He had not even waited until they reached a port.
He dropped them on a deserted beach. Without knowing their starting point, they had three choices. They could go north or south, with no idea how far they were from the ports shown on the map, or they could strike inland. They were on the western shore of the continent, so most of the cities would be to the east. A day later they found a high road that angled in a northeasterly direction. Correctly guessing it led to a city, they followed it until the soldiers attacked.
"I know," Ripple brightened, slipped her pack off her shoulders and rummaged in the depths. "We'll change clothes so the soldiers won't recognize us, and we'll wear these," she pulled out two crumpled hats with tall crowns and floppy brims.
"You're determined to take a bath and change clothes," Trap laughed, though he had no objection. It had taken them five days to amble the sixty miles from the shore to their present location. They had stopped frequently, inspecting the local flora, animals and anything else that interested them. The afternoons had been hot and his skin was sticky with sweat.
An hour and a half later, Trap stood with his feet wide apart and his hands braced on his knees as he leaned forward. Strands of his long, dark brown hair, freshly washed and nearly dry, moved in the light breeze. His sister caught it and twisted it into a smooth roll, then she expertly flipped it into a loop close to his head. Using one slim finger, she pulled the coil through the loop. With a gentle jerk, strong enough to set the hair, but not hard enough to cause Trap any pain, she tightened the top knot.
Many kender used thongs, cords, metal rings and other devices to manage their long hair, and in Hylo some cut it short to be rid of the bother. The Fargo family had always adhered to the ancient custom of the actual knot at the exact center of the crown. When Trap stood, the ends fell just to the nape of his neck.
Ripple leaned forward and he tied her much longer hair. Then he caught up the blond ponytail and flipped it around his finger. When he let it go it fell in one shining curl that reached her waist. But no one would be seeing that thick, shining tress for a while. She leaned sideways, caught it in the crown of the hat and seated the headgear firmly on her head, hiding both the topknot and her pointed ears.
The hats had been a parting gift from their uncle, Skipout Fargo, and he had given them cryptic instructions to go with the headgear. Obeying the advice of Uncle Skipout, Trapspringer wrapped his bedding around the forked end of his hoopak and attached his pack to it. Ripple did the same with her whippik. When they were finished, Trap surveyed the result and shook his head.
"Gee, we don't look like ourselves," he complained when they were ready. With their top knots and ears hidden and their weapons camouflaged, they resembled slender twelve-year-old human children.
"I think it's what Uncle Skipout intended," Ripple said.
"I can't think why." Trapspringer murmured with a frown, but when an idea struck him his face lit with a smile. "Maybe humans like kender to look like them."
"I see, we're doing it to be friendly! I like that," Ripple said, nodding her approval. "Remember what father said."
As she took a step away from the log a low branch nearly dislodged her hat. She leaned her whippik against the tree, readjusted her headgear, and as she reached for her camouflaged weapon, noticed a small, interesting flower: a pink puff on a short stem.
"What did father say?" asked Trapspringer, who had been gazing into the bushes where a rustle had given evidence of a hiding animal. He decided he had been mistaken and had picked up the thread of the conversation.
"It's very pretty."
"Father said your hat was pretty?"
Ripple looked from the flower to her brother and said, "Did he ever see my hat?"
Brother and sister exchanged smiles and shouldered their weapons and packs. The typical kender conversation flowed along a serpentine course with eddies of unrelated but interesting sidelights. To a human, the entire point of the conversation would be quickly lost, but since the kender seldom wanted to make any point they were usually satisfied.
"I hope the soldiers aren't mad at us anymore," Ripple said as she stepped over a log.
"They made a mistake, and when they realize it they'll be sorry," Trapspringer said. "We shouldn't be angry about it, it could happen to anyone. I know they'll apologize, but right now, I think we should keep to the woods as long as we can."
Walking through the forest was more pleasant than traveling the dusty road. Spring was well underway, it being the beginning of the month of Flower-field in the kender language, Fluer-green in Solamnic. The trees had been in full leaf for less than a fortnight. The day was lazily warm so they enjoyed the shade. Busy insects buzzed through the shadows and into the dappled sun-light where their wings glowed in the bright beams.
The forest stretched east another two miles. When they reached the road again they saw no sign of the patrol, so they continued until they stood looking at the walled city. The ship captain's map that had mysteriously appeared among Trapspringer's belongings had listed the name of the city as Lytburg.
"What do you think?" Trap asked his sister.
Above the outer defenses, bristling with battlements and bartizans, they could see the towers of the keep, set far inside the city's fortifications.
"It looks as if they're expecting trouble," Ripple said, undaunted by the prospect of danger. "It looks interesting."
"Interesting" was the rallying cry for the entire race of kender, who would rather face death than boredom, so they continued up the road.
As they drew closer to the bridge at the gates of the city, they noticed a deep trench that ran along the outside of the city's walled defenses. Abatis lined the ditch. The bark of the securely anchored, up-thrust logs and strong tree branches had grayed with age. The pointed ends showed blackened tips, suggesting they had been hardened with fire. Below the black char the pale, freshly cut wood indicated that the points had been recently sharpened to cut away the rot.
A stone bridge with sturdy stone railings limited the access to the gate. Several farmers' carts were drawn up as close to the left railing as possible. The drivers waited for the gate guards to inspect their cargo. The wide sharp tips of the city's military weaponry gleamed as if newly sharpened. The soldiers roughly shoved one of the farmers about. They demanded to know the farmer's business and poked at the baskets of potatoes and cabbages in his simple cart.
"The guards look busy," Ripple said as they approached the end of the bridge.
"They're important to the city," Trap replied. "We shouldn't take up their valuable time."
Ahead, a guard ordered the arriving cart to pull to the left. The vehicle was unwieldy, piled high with hay. The mules objected to the wall and the soldier kept shouting at the driver. When the wagon finally stopped, the guard reached up and grabbed the arm of the farmer, hauling him off the seat.
The two kender had been about to skirt the cart and cross the bridge, but just then a troop of soldiers came through the gate, leaving the city. The leader shouted at the guards and the farmers to make way as he urged his horse forward. Behind him the troop, riding two abreast, were shoving the farmers and the guards up against the carts.
Trap and Ripple ducked back behind the last cart and he climbed up on the left bridge railing to get out from underfoot. The stone facing had once risen to a knife-sharp angle, but age had rounded it. Kender in general had excellent balance, particularly the Fargo family.
"We can just walk along this railing to the gate," Trap said, leading the way. "The guards will be grateful to us for not bothering them, and we won't get in the way of the horses and wagons."
The two kender walked along the railing behind the carts, entered the city unnoticed, and strolled down a busy street. The locals, mostly human and dwarf, hurried in both directions on unknown errands. Occasionally they saw an elf, but they had not seen any of their own people. The height of the humans' shoulders were well above the heads of the kender, so their view was limited to the buildings they passed.
Two and three story half-timbered buildings, most with cantilevered second floors, shaded the pavement and the smell of mustiness mingled with the odor of bodies.
Their diminutive height had kept them from seeing what lay ahead. Then, through a break in the crowd, they saw a sunlit open square and caught a glimpse of awnings over rough stalls.
"Wow, it's Shadow Day," Ripple said with delight.
"Call it Bracha here," Trap reminded his sister. Whether they used the kinder or the Solamnic name, it did seem to be the seventh day of the week, market day.
They increased their pace and in minutes they reached the open square. There they slowed, stopping occasion-ally to look at the displayed merchandise. Everything in the world seemed to be on sale in the square. They saw pigs and horses, furs and vegetables, hoes and plows, wagons and fowls roasting on spits. Bolts of silks, wool and velvet lay cheek by jowl with cured leather.
Farmers in homespun clothing, with the mud of their fields still on their boots, rubbed shoulders with the city dwellers, some in filthy rags, some in clean, well darned clothing, some in silks and velvets. Hawkers carried trays and baskets supported by leather straps or ropes around their necks or over their shoulders. They shouted over the noise of the crowd as they announced their wares. Calls of "Roasted Nuts!" "Meat rolls!" and "Melon slices!" rang over the arguing, bargaining, shouted greetings and laughter of the shoppers.
Further on they discovered a traveling baker's stall and behind it an oven made of iron sheets cleverly fitted together. It could be taken apart in minutes. Trap stopped to consider the oven, wondering if it was of dwarven design. Ripple continued down the row of stalls.
Trap picked up a still warm loaf, inspecting the crust to see if it was to his liking. Across the way a shouting match broke out between two would-be buyers for the same pig. The kender hurried over to see if there would be a fight, but the seller, a narrow faced little man with a twitching nose, decided he had undervalued the pig. He upped the price and the two bearded, roughly dressed farmers suddenly allied against him.
When the shoppers stomped away, Trap lost interest and wandered on down the stalls. He forgot he was still holding the bread until he caught up with Ripple. She spotted the loaf, too large for Trap to eat alone, and asked if he planned on sharing it with her. He looked down at the bread in surprise and she understood his expression.
"You forgot to pay for it," she observed, knowing her brother was all kender. They had promised their parents they would be careful to pay for whatever they took, and their pouches were bulging with steel pieces.
"I went to see a fight," Trap explained his possession of the bread. He promised himself he would return and pay for it, but at the moment there was so much to see. He would pay the baker when they returned up the row of stalls.
"We really should eat it while it's still warm," he said as he tore the loaf in half and handed Ripple her share. He was just going to take a bite when he saw two human children hungrily eyeing the food. Trap broke off two pieces, giving each a warm, crusty hunk.
Ripple had walked on ahead again and stopped at a jeweler's stall to admire a bracelet of gold set with blue stones. The owner of the stall, a dwarf with a magnificent black beard streaked with gray, was in the middle of a bargaining session with a portly, well dressed human. Three young boys came racing through the crowded stalls, scuffling and pushing each other playfully. Two, wrestling each other as they ran, knocked into the right support of the dwarf's stall. The temporary shelter swayed. The pegged display board, raised to a steep angle to better show the glittering wares, was in danger of toppling. The dwarf caught it and pulled it back into place. He was not in time to keep two necklaces and a wide gold bracelet from falling to the ground.
Ripple knelt and picked up the jewelry. She was rising, reaching to put them back on the display board when a female shopper passed, oblivious to the problems of the jeweler. The woman was carrying a wide basket on her arm, and it brushed against Ripple's hat, knocking it off.
The dwarf had seemed happy enough to have Ripple's assistance, but when he saw the topknot and pointed ears, he roared and ducked under the display.
"Thief! Kender thief!" he roared and pushed past the portly customer as he reached out, grabbing Ripple's arm.