"Not really," Flannery argued. "The dead aren't using their armor or their swords anymore. They don't mind giving them to us, especially when we explain that we're providing a service. Product given for services rendered."

"Service for product," said Digger, the first words the dwarf had uttered. Yarl's eyes widened suspiciously.

"In return," Flannery continued smoothly, "we bury the dead and perform the proper rituals so that they may rest in peace."

"Yeah, yeah," said Gnash, rolling his eyes. "Get to the interesting part. What do you do with the armor and the swords? Sell 'em as souvenirs?"

Flannery reached into his pocket and pulled out two shiny steel coins. He handed one to Yarl and one to Gnash. Both examined them. The coins were marked LORD CITY PALANTHAS on one side and BANK OF PALAN-THAS on the other.

"Yeah, so?" Gnash said, fingering the coins. "You get a little money from selling old weapons."

"Must be about twenty copper's worth of old weapons out there," said Yarl, disgusted.

"No, no, nothing like that," Flannery said. "We don't sell the armor for coin. We melt down the armor and the swords and use the steel to make coins. I minted both those coins you're holding in your hand."

Yarl gasped. "You . . . you make your own money? Can you do that?"

"We can, and we do," said Flannery. "We work for the Bank of Palanthas."

Gnash thought this over. "Then how come everyone's not running around making their own money out of old armor?"

"Excellent question, my friend. The reason no one else does it is that steel is extremely difficult to work with. I have developed a magical powder that I add to the steel that causes it to melt at a much lower temperature than normal."

Flannery pulled out a bag and opened it. Inside was a fine, gray powder. "I use just a pinch. Can't waste any magic. Not these days. After the steel is melted, I pour the steel into sheets and then use that machine you see over there to punch out the coins. A good sword or piece of armor makes a surprising number of steel coins."

Flannery motioned at the dwarf to open the iron padlock on the chest at the rear of the wagon. Digger frowned and looked at the old man questioningly, but Flannery gave him a rea.s.suring nod. Shrugging, Digger opened the chest for the brothers to see.

Gnash and Yarl peered inside. The chest was full to the brim with steel coin, all gleaming and freshly minted.

Gnash stared at the man in disbelief. "Are you telling me that you have a wagonload of steel coins, and you're all alone out here with nothin' but a dwarf for a bodyguard? I don't believe it."

Jumping to his feet, he grabbed his sword hilt and looked about, as if expecting a huge warrior to leap out at him at any moment.

"I a.s.sure you, we are quite alone," said Flannery.

"Then why tell us? We're really bad guys, you know." Gnash and Yarl both scowled ferociously. "You know we're gonna have to kill you now and take all your money."

"I'm afraid that's a risk I have to take," said Flannery with a hint of sadness. "You see, I tell you this because I need your help. I was trained as a cleric of Paladine-"

"We don't think much of clerics," growled Yarl, rattling his sword in its sheath.

"Oh, I'm not a cleric anymore," said Flannery hurriedly. "It's because I was a cleric of Paladine that I am able to bury the dead Solamnics and dead elves with the proper sacred rituals. But I'm in a bit of quandary when I come to the bodies of those who died in the name of Queen Takhisis. I can't bury them with the proper rituals so that they will sleep the sleep of the dead, which means that I can't take their armor. I've been hoping I'd run into someone who would understand the proper procedure for burying the dead of Queen Takhisis. Now you gentlemen are here, and you might be able to help me. Besides having my utmost grat.i.tude, I'd be glad to pay you, of course."

The brothers looked at each other. They couldn't believe this old man was so foolish. But then, their parents had been the same way. Always prattling about trust and loving your neighbor and all that rot.

"You're gonna pay us all right," said Gnash tersely. "As for buryin' dead guys, we'll see to it that we bury you both nice and proper."

He yanked his sword out and pressed the point of his blade to Flannery's breast, then glanced over at Digger. "You, dwarf, start shoveling that steel into sacks. I want to know how much we're going to make for this night's work. Make it quick or you'll get to see me start cuttin' pieces off this old man."

Flannery gave a slight nod. Digger started to count out stacks of steel coins.

Flannery looked down his nose at the blade that was pressed against his chest. "Nice weapon. A little rusty, but still in good condition. How much did you pay for it?"

"It cost him forty steel up north," Yarl answered proudly. "It's a really good blade. I got one too."

Flannery touched the edge with his finger. "Sharp. Know what it's worth?"

Gnash sneered. "Yeah, it's worth forty steel."

Flannery shook his head. "I reckon I could make sixty steel coins out of that blade this very night. And I could make another sixty out of your armor."

Gnash's jaw sagged. "Sixty! I only paid twenty-five for the armor!"

"Now you see why I'm in this business," Flannery explained. "You could rob us, of course, and kill us into the bargain, but in truth you'd be cheating yourself out of a lot more money. Whereas if you help us, I'll cut you in for a share of all the armor of the Knights of Takhisis."

Outside the wagon, night had fallen. The pattering of rain stopped. Inside, the dwarf halted his money counting and turned around.

"You really mean that?" Gnash asked eagerly. "You could make our armor and blades into a lot more money than they're worth?"

"And if we help you dig up dead Knights of Takhisis, we get a share of their armor, too?"

"It's not so much the digging up we need help with," Flannery explained-a tad reluctantly it seemed. "It's the putting back into the ground that's giving us problems".

Gnash and Yarl looked at each other. The old wizard was talking riddles again.

"What do you say? The standard contract for services rendered?"

Digger reached into his shirt and drew forth a sheaf of parchment. He held it forth temptingly.

"I know what I say," Gnash said to his brother.

"It tops the reward for Mom and Pop," Yarl agreed, eyeing the steel coins in the chest. Leaning close, he whispered, "Besides, once we learn the trick of that there powder, then we can kill them both anyway."

"Smart thinking, little brother," whispered Gnash admiringly. Lowering the sword from Flannery's chest, Gnash thrust the weapon back into its sheath. He reached down to undo the buckle of his sword belt.

"Just a moment," said Flannery, raising his hand. "Remember our bargain: product given for services rendered. Tell me the ritual for burying the dead of the Knights of Takhisis."

"Some mumbo jumbo about commending the souls of the dead to Takhisis for all eternity," said Gnash, not much interested. "That's the important part. The Gray Robes say that settles 'em. There's wrapping of cloth and incense and candles as such if there's time. Spooky waste of time, if you ask me."

"Thank you!" said Flannery with a deep sigh. Lifting his hand, he held it over the heads of the two brothers. "And I commend your souls to Takhisis for all eternity."

Swords, sheathes, belts, buckles, chain mail and helmets made a sharp banging and clattering sound as they all hit the floor. For a brief instant, two skeletal figures stood staring at Flannery, a flicker of enmity in the hollow, empty eye sockets.

"Product given for services rendered," Flannery reminded them sternly.

"Standard contract," said Digger Cutterstone, exhibiting the paper.

The skeletons collapsed in a heap of tangled bones onto the pile of metal that had once, thirty years ago, been their armor.

The dwarf and the old man stood looking at the remains.

"That was a close one," said Digger.

"Indeed it was," said Flannery, wiping sweat from his face with the sleeve of his robe. "We must be more careful next time. But at least now we know that part about commending their souls to Takhisis. Seemed to work fine."

The wagon rolled off the next morning, heading for the site of the next battle-Chaos War, War of the Lance, it didn't matter. There were enough battlefields to keep Masters Flannery and Cutterstone busy for the rest of their lives.

They left a peaceful gravesite with two grave markers on the large mound.

The first read: THREE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN SOLAMNIC SOLDIERS, FIFTY-ONE SOLAMNIC KNIGHTS, AND TWO QUALINESTI ELVES. BATTLE OF THE SOLACE WATERSHED, CHAOS WAR. YEAR 384 AFTER CATACLYSM. THEY DIED BRAVELY.

The second read: TWO DEAD BROTHERS, SERGEANTS OF THE KNIGHTS OF TAKHISIS, BATTLE OF THE SOLACE WATERSHED, CHAOS WAR, YEAR 384 AFTER CATACLYSM. THEY DIED . . . FINALLY.

Dragon's Throat

DONALD J. BINGLE.

They say the upper reaches of Gimmenthal Glacier are so beautiful it's hard to think. Goodness knows it's hard to breathe. Tumbling down from the airless heights of Icewall, rugged, jumbled chunks of ice pack together to inch down onto the Plains of Dust. Ice crystals sparkle as they sift into pristine drifts spanning awesomely deep cobalt fissures in the ma.s.sive river of ice. In the summer, so I've heard, it's so quiet you can hear the melt-off trickle down into the shadowy blue depths of the broken ice to refreeze again once out of the baleful glare of the never-setting summer sun.

'Course n.o.body much goes there. Even the Ice Nomads visit the head of the glacier only sporadically, and then in the gloom of winter to start the longest and most challenging of their Ice Boat races.

Nope, for thousands of years, n.o.body much cared about Gimmenthal Glacier at all. And then the kender came.

It's not like the pesky little troublemakers suddenly decided to hike up the glacier to appreciate nature. Nah. The idiots prefer to camp in the mud, scores of miles from the heights of Icewall and about twenty miles east of Ice Mountain Bay, where Gimmenthal dies in a sprawl like the flow of dirty, molten wax from a cheap candleholder. Streaked with dirt, rock, and mud in ragged stripes, pushed into its midst as tributary glaciers join the mammoth torrent of ice in its inexorable downslope progress, Gimmenthal melts. Strange as it may seem, the kender come for the melting.

Y'see, in winter, that old glacier creeps forward onto the Plains of Dust, pushing mounds of gravel and top-soil before it. Come summer, it retreats again, leaving a pockmarked landscape of mounded earth and muddy pools of water. It's this messy melt-off that makes the glacier so popular with kender not afflicted by the destruction of Kendermore by the great dragon Malystryx.

These merry, irrepressible kender long for adventure. They want to see and "handle" baubles and gewgaws of all sorts, trade 'em, and "find" them yet again. But with the mood of Krynn these days, they find few enough places to be happy. Their afflicted cousins are no longer any fun. Every sheriff or Knight of Neraka they run into shuffles them off to jail. Magic is getting scarcer and less interesting all the time. And travelers are few and getting fewer as the Great Dragons close roads and terrified communities close their borders.

'Bout the only bright spot for curious kender is, of course, a visit to the Tomb of the Last Heroes in Solace, where they can celebrate the mighty feat of Ta.s.slehoff Burrfoot in defeating Chaos. They do this by mocking the Knights solemnly guarding the Tomb, sneaking over the fence to break chunks of marble off as souvenirs, and frolicking on the picnic grounds 'neath the giant vallenwood trees with similarly inclined and often similarly named kender.

A visit to Solace is not enough for some kender, though, and many have taken to tracing Ta.s.slehoff s journeys during his days as a Hero of the Lance, hoping to recapture the excitement of his encounters with dragons and draconians, gully dwarves and wooly mammoths. From Pax Tharkas to the Gates of Thor-bardin, they travel. Of course, the dwarves will not actually let the kender into Thorbardin, and the kender have no way to follow Tas's journeys into the Abyss, but they do what they can. So began the kender trips to Icewall.

Once kender began trekking to Icewall, it was only a matter of time before one wayward traveler happened upon the melting terminus of Gimmenthal Glacier. The "discovery" of Gimmenthal Glacier (the locating of huge geographic features well-known and mapped by both the Ice Nomads and the dwellers on the Plains of Dust amounts to a "discovery" to a kender) would have occasioned no great fuss if it had not been for the items found there. For, y'see, the melting glacier gives up the stuff of kender dreams: random junk. Coins, weapons, bones of all sorts, rings, pots, canteens, half-rotted hats, belt-buckles, boots, utility knives, pouches, teeth, mangled and frayed rope, and on and on and on.

Apparently, at some time long forgotten, there was a battle between two mighty armies in the heights from which Gimmenthal Glacier flows. The battle remnants were quickly covered with endless snow. The snow compacted over eons into the hard ice of the glacier, and the battlefield items slowly wound their way down to the Plains of Dust to be revealed at the melting terminus of the glacier.

Not surprisingly, Gimmenthal-quickly dubbed "Gimme Glacier" by the excited "discoverer"-became a stopping point for curious kender on the way to Ice-wall. A constant stream of kender flock over the mud-piles, dredge the ponds of melt-off, sift through the piles of mounded gravel, and even mine the irregular icy edges and smaller fissures of the glacier itself, searching for buried treasure-well, treasure to kender anyway. Though the recovered items are mostly mundane items of metal or other st.u.r.dy construction, they are from an unknown and ancient time. One can never tell what wonders might be found. Better yet, the pickings are plentiful and, at first, no pesky sheriff or angry shopkeeper kept guard over the items, shooing kender away.

Then something happened, so they say.

Once he had heard of Gimme Glacier, there was no keeping Finderkeeper Rumplton away. A thirteenth cousin, twice removed, of Ta.s.slehoff Burrfoot himself, Finderkeeper was determined to uphold the family honor, which of course meant wandering to as many places and finding as many things as he possibly could. Following in the steps of his famous ancestor-he was constantly looking down to see if he could actually see the steps of his famous ancestor-Finderkeeper had, at first, debated whether he should take the sidetrip to Gimme Glacier before or after visiting Icewall fortress. But when he heard from pa.s.sing travelers that magic had recently been discovered among the items of Gimme Glacier, he made for the site straight away. Never mind that n.o.body knew what the magic did or if it would still work in these days of uncertain magical effects. Never mind that flocks of kender were already swarming all over the glacier, the gravel mounds, and the mudpits. Never mind that Finder-keeper wouldn't know what to do with a magic item if he found one. Here was an opportunity not to be missed. He whistled at his good fortune, twirled his topknot three times around in excitement, and headed for Gimme Glacier with a look of acquisitiveness so determined that it caused a pa.s.sing merchant to check his pouch twice.

The scene at Gimme Glacier was chaos itself, or at least what remnants of Chaos had survived Ta.s.slehoff s n.o.ble sacrifice at the end of the Fourth Age of Krynn. Kender plunged headfirst into muddy pools searching in the slimy muck at the bottom for artifacts. Gravel flew everywhere as mounds were enthusiastically plundered for treasure. Picks thudded regularly into the face of Gimme Glacier as impatient kender attempted to hurry the impa.s.sive ice into revealing its secrets. Tripods, pulleys, and ropes dangled over creva.s.ses on the face of the ice sheet itself as suspended kender attempted to inspect areas that might not melt for years to come. Gaggles of kender oohed and ahhed over mud-encrusted items, trying to figure out what they were. Disappointment showed when the items turned out to be mere armor buckles or stones, but not too much disappointment.

Finderkeeper threw himself into the fray. After numerous conversations with his incredibly talkative yet refreshingly truthful cousins, and some complex calculations, he picked a spot where he judged a sensible mage would have positioned himself in relation to the main line of battle. He climbed up onto the icy surface of the glacier and made his way almost thirty feet from the soft, melting edge. No one was looking here yet. After all, so far nothing had been found near this spot. He set to exploring the creva.s.ses-already more than ten feet deep even so close to the melting edge of the glacier.

It was dangerous. A slip into the creva.s.se and he would fall until it narrowed enough to pin him. Then the ice would quickly drain away heat from his body, most likely too quickly for him to be saved, even if his fellow kender were paying enough attention to hear his cries for help above the hubbub and commotion.

Late the next afternoon, however, he found his prize: an odd piece of smooth, pinkish stone with a rounded k.n.o.b at one end, tapering to a flat oval at the other. No bigger than a small skipping stone, it seemed to glow from within as it lay frozen in the creva.s.se wall, suffusing a rosy hue to the ice-blue of the fresh chasm. An hour later, his fingers numb from digging at the frozen wall with his dagger, Finderkeeper held the object in his hands. His fingers warmed from its mere touch. This must be magic. Given the age of the other relics that had been found here, Finderkeeper Rum-plton was sure that this was lost Irda magic.

He couldn't contain himself. Faster than a shopkeeper blocks the entrance to his store at the sight of an approaching kender, Finderkeeper leaped up from his mining creva.s.se and hollered, "I found Irda magic!" He might have been trampled in the excited onrush of treasure-fevered kender had not a squad of Knights of Neraka been busily rounding up the treasure-seekers for search and interrogation. Instead, the few nearest kender were the only ones to run over and marvel over Finderkeeper's discovery.

News of magic travels fast. Finderkeeper had arrived at Gimme Glacier only a day before the Knights of Neraka. Sensing, as did the mages of Krynn, the waning power of their magic, the great dragons sought magic artifacts over all else. Their lackeys, the Knights of Neraka, did their bidding, tracking down and taking all magic that they could find. Just as Finderkeeper had been loosing the Irda magic from the glacier's chilly grip, the Knights had arrived and taken charge of the search for magic at Gimmenthal Glacier.

Vern Hasterck, Commander of the squad of Knights, found no joy in his a.s.signment to Gimmenthal Glacier. It was bad enough that the squad had to do a three-day forced march over the Plains of Dust to arrive quickly, but the southern reaches of the Plains would now be better called the Plains of Mud. Melt-off from the encroaching glacial fingers of Icewall had created a myriad of streams, ponds, and lakes-all unmapped and numbingly cold to cross. The swampy terrain yielded naught but swarms of accursed mosquitoes and biting flies, yet here he was to remain indefinitely, camped in the muck at the foot of a giant slab of ice, trying to corral kender into work details until something useful to his magic-craving dragonmaster could be found. Then and only then could he leave this frozen wasteland.

He could scarcely believe his good fortune when, mere hours after arrival, he heard one of the f.e.c.kless kender cry out, "I found Irda magic!"

"Seize that kender!" he shouted to his troops. Find-erkeeper heard the order and, after looking quickly over his shoulder to see who the nasty-looking Knight Commander might be talking about, uttered a squeak and backed away. "Take all his goods and bring them to me!"

While being seized is an annoying bother to most kender, the words "take all his goods" are the closest that non-afflicted kender know to actually inspiring fear, or at least aggravation.

"It's mine! I found it!" protested Finderkeeper as he continued backing away from the squad of Knights moving through the milling kender.

A tumult of protest arose from the kender. Murmurs and shouts of "He's right!"

"Leave him alone!"

"Find your own magic!" and "Run for it, boy!" erupted from all sides. The commotion was rising, and a fullscale kender riot threatened to break out at any moment. Hasterck was not about to let his chance of getting out of this a.s.signment be missed because of mere kender.

"Kill anyone who gets in your way-anyone who helps him." Hasterck joined his men in rushing toward Finderkeeper.

Finderkeeper's squeak was even louder than before, as he turned his heels on the Knights and headed south, up the flowing river of ice. Fortunately, the Knights were tired from their forced march and, though longer of stride than the scampering Finderkeeper, they were unable to gain ground on their quarry.

Hasterck cursed as the quick solution to his unhappy situation scampered upslope, out of reach of his lumbering soldiers. He could not let this opportunity slip away, but he also had to see to the kender camp. Something else, something better and more readily taken might be found. As twilight fell, Hasterck divided the squad into two segments. The majority turned back under his Second-in-Command to question, search, and organize the kender that had not taken the chance to skedaddle during their temporary reprieve from the reaches of authority.

Looking back, Finderkeeper was disappointed to see that the second segment included the two largest Knights and the Knight Commander and that they had set up camp on his trail. It seemed like a lot of fuss and bother. Sure, he had found Irda magic, but he didn't know what it did or what it used to do. Still, it was his magic and he meant to keep it.

Finderkeeper tried to push on, but it was difficult in the dark. The solitary moon had not yet risen to guide him, and the creva.s.ses grew deeper, wider, and more a.s.suredly deadly as he progressed up the glacier. He angled toward the western edge in the hope that it would be less dangerous, when he was suddenly grabbed by his topknot and hoisted into the air.

"Look what I found, Thrak!" bellowed the large, sinewy Ice Nomad holding Finderkeeper aloft. "If huntin' don't improve, we can always take this varmint back for roasting."

"Put him down, Bodar," ordered a taller, lankier Ice Nomad on the rocky crags at the edge of the glacier. "That's no way to teach Garn hospitality on his first hunting trip." He nodded toward a nearby overhang, where a young boy sat sharpening a spear as he huddled for warmth.