The Magic Of Krynn (11 page)

Tika looked wistful, forgetting her own sorrow. “It's about a man who kisses his love
good-bye and goes away forever, only she doesn't know that, and waits for him until she's
old and lonely and she dies-”

“Birds sang where she died.”

Tika sighed happily. “And all their songs were sad. Otik, am I going to end like that? Do
you think I'll end up living all alone, with nobody to love or to live with, sleeping by
myself and making meals for one?”

Otik looked for a long time in the mirror at the long bar's end. Finally he turned around.
“Sometimes it happens. Surely not to you, though. Now go, pretty young one, and get the
last cask.”

He scrubbed the tun hard, perhaps harder than it needed.

It was noon, but there were no spiced potatoes cooking, no shouts for ale. Otik had hung a
tankard upside down on the post at the bottom steps, so that even the unlettered would
know not to climb up needlessly. Otik closed for every brewing, opening only when the
alewort was made.

The brewing tun was clean and filled with spring water, waiting behind the bar for the
malt syrup. The syrup was warmed and waiting. The yeast, the final addition to the
alewort, was in a bowl on the bar.

But the hops had not yet arrived, and Otik was as impatient as Tika. before he heard slow,
heavy steps on the stairs.

“Tika,” he called, “come out.” She came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron as
he said, “Hear that? Someone carrying a burden. Our hops have come.” He cocked an ear,
listening with the knowledge of long years. “Not as heavy as I thought. Did Kerwin not
bring a full load?”

The Inn door flew open and a burlap bag waddled in, seemingly under its own power, and
leaped to the floor before the tun. A kender, still doubled from his load, peered through
his arched brows at them and grinned suddenly.

“Moonwick.” Otik did not say the kender's name with pleasure. Among men, the short,
mischievous kender were famous for

practical joking and for disregarding other people's property, and Moonwick Light-finger
was famous among kender. It was said, even by sober travelers, that once when Moonwick was
at Crystalmir Lake, the partying crew of a small fishing boat had woken in full gear, on
deck, to find their boat lodged thirty feet off the ground between two trees. The topmost
tree branches bore pulley marks, but the pulleys had been removed. It took eight men two
days to get the boat down.

It was further rumored, in stories possibly started by the kender himself, that Moonwick
had on separate occasions stolen the tail from a cat, the blonde hair from a human woman,
and, on a night of unexplained eclipse, the moonlight itself-which was how he got his
name. Otik subscribed to the more popular theory that the kender's name was a flattering
corruption of Moonwit. Moonwick smiled up at Otik. "Here's your hops, and gods how

I prayed a thousand times that they'd hop themselves here. Where's my reward?“ He added,
”Gold will do."

Otik did not smile back. “Kerwin was bringing the hops. What happened to him?”

“You paid him in advance. He had money. He wanted to gamble.” The kender said earnestly,
“I said we could do it for anything: buttons, rocks, things in our pockets-but he wouldn't
listen. He said he felt lucky.”

Otik stared at the kender. “So he gambled for money with you? Lady of Plenty, look after
your witiing orphans. What happened to him?”

Moonwick looked sad. “He lost.”

Otik said dryly, “I'm shocked.” As Moonwick opened his mouth in protest, Otik went on,
“Never mind. Why are you carrying the hops?”

Now Moonwick did look embarrassed and sincerely angry. “Kerwin said that since I had his
wages, I should do his work. I said that was foolish, and we argued, and finally we agreed
to gamble for who made this trip.”

“Naturally you accepted. Can't pass up a game. And?” Otik suspected, but could not
believe, the outcome.

The kender burst out, “He won. I can't imagine how that could have happened. He must have
cheated.”

“Undoubtedly. Well, you've been paid for your trip, but I'll give you ale for your
trouble, and a meal if you wish.” Otik knelt and opened the bag, running his hands through
the hops.

“I ate on the road. I shared lunch with-well, with another traveler.” The kender twiddled
at the end of the short hoopak stick

angled into his belt. The stick, at once the best weapon and chief musical instrument of
kender, seemed to trouble him.

Years of innkeeping had made Otik alive to evasion. “What sort of traveler?”

“Human.” Moonwick shrugged, grabbing again at the hoopak stick as it slipped in his belt.
“This thing doesn't seem to be balancing properly.”

Otik suddenly understood the kender's reluctance to speak of the fellow traveler. “Perhaps
that has to do with the purse hooked onto the end of it,” he observed.

“Purse?” The kender whirled around. The stick, naturally, whirled with him. “I see no
purse.”

“Look over your shoulder. No, the other shoulder. The drawstring is twisted over the end
of your stick.” Otik sighed as the kender peered this way and that in apparent disbelief
that he should ever end up with another man's belongings.

“Why, look at that! A purse, just as you say. Imagine that. How could that happen?”

“Seems incredible,” Otik agreed politely.

“And yet . . . Yes, I know exactly how it might have happened. You know how we use
hoopaks?”

“Vaguely.” Kender could move a hoopak stick, in combat or to make a noise, faster than men
could see. Otik had once seen a drunken swordsman lose a fight with an apparently unarmed
kender. At the start of the fight, the kender had been five feet from the hoopak.

“Yes. Well, I was singing, and accompanying myself by whirling my hoopak to get a high
note-on a dry day with a little wind, I can get two notes at once- and I twisted it with
my wrist as I spun it, and I must have caught the purse-string just as I twisted.”

“Ah. That must be it.”

“You can see how it would happen.” Moonwick spun the hoopak over his head and,
incidentally, over the bar and nearly against the back wall. “Because it's hard to see
exactly where the 'pak-end moves when it twists-”

“I see that.” Otik deftly retrieved the tankard which had slipped, seemingly of its own
will, over the end of the stick. “Accidents will happen.”

“Of course.” Moonwick looked at him with insistent innocence. “Because I would never,
ever, ever simply steal a purse from someone.”

“Of course not.”

“Especially from this man. He was so nice, and so knowledgeable.” Moonwick leaned on his
staff. “We shared our lunches, and traded for variety, and he told the best stories. He'd
swum to the bottom of Crystalmir Lake for stonefish, and picked plants from the edge of
Darken Wood. He once climbed a dead tree by moonlight, and he told the funniest story
about speaking to the ghost of the grandmother that never respected him. His name was
Ralf. He was on his way to see his mother, he said.” The kender added thoughtfully, “She
must like jewelry; he had lots of little gifts for her, and he kept mixing up her name.
Said he had a powder to feed Gwendol, then Genna, then Gerria-”

“A mage?” Otik was uneasy near magic.

“Oh, no.” Moonwick shook his head violently. “Just a charm vendor: potions, powders,
elixirs, amulets- nothing serious. Why, this is probably quite harmless.” He held the bag
toward Otik. “Probably the poor man will be here any day, looking for this. Would you
take-”

“No” “Just overnight; surely you're not-” “No.” “What possible harm could there be-” “I
have no idea what harm there could be,” Otik said

firmly. “I don't intend to find out. I keep away from magic.” The kender looked pityingly.
"You miss a lot of ex-

citement that way.“ ”Long ago I took a vow. I'm devoting my life to missing

a lot of excitement.“ ”All right, then." Moonwick bounced the bag on his

palm. “I'll return it myself. Someday.” "Good of you. In the meantime, I'm sorry you don't
need

a meal. Why don't you take-“ With a quick wrist movement, Otik caught Moonwick's arm as it
flashed across the bar-”a mug of ale, for your throat."

“Good idea.” The kender grabbed a mug. “Maybe I could stay here the night,” he said
wistfully.

“No.” Otik sighed. “I'm still replacing forks from the last time.”

Moonwick waved a hand. “Surely you don't blame me- Wasn't that a cry from the kitchen?”

It was. It sounded like a buried cook. Otik grunted. “Pantry shelf's fallen again.” He
trotted for the kitchen door, then whirled. “Touch nothing without invitation while I'm
gone.”

“Sound advice,” the kender murmured. As Otik disappeared

through the door, the kender held his lips still. The tap on the counter-keg said in a
squeaky voice, "Have a

refill, Moonwick.“ ”I will,“ the kender said happily, ”and thank you for the

invitation." While he drank, for practice he made the buried-cook sound come from one of
the packs at his side.

He stuck his hoopak straight out and spun it, balancing the purse on the end. When the
drawstrings came undone he caught the purse neatly, then smelted it. “What an odd odor.”
He opened it and tilted it sideways. A pinch of powder like cinnamon drifted to the floor.
He made a face. “It's a charm. Something terrible, too- icky-sweet and spice-filled. It's
not even labeled; it could be anything. How does Ralf expect people who find his purse by
accident to know what to do with it?” He sighed. “Magicians are so untrustworthy.”

Moonwick poked the purse itself. “Nice bag, though.” He looked behind the bar for a place
to empty out the useless dust, then saw the loose-lidded tun of alewort. He grinned,
lifted the lid and emptied the contents of the pouch inside.

When Otik came back, he checked the bar carefully. Nothing seemed to be missing. He eyed
Moonwick, who smiled innocently at him. “Nice ale,” the kender said.

“It's my own recipe.” The innkeeper added, “Thanks to your contribution, this batch will
be even better.”

The kender choked. Otik stooped to pat his back, then retrieved an empty purse from the
floor. “What's this?”

“Mine.” The kender deftly plucked it from the innkeeper's hands. “I hope to fill it
someday.”

“Not in my inn.” Otik added, as the kender rose to leave, “My thanks, Moonwick. Leave the
door open, so the brew smell will air out. Come back next full moon, if you wish to taste
what you carried.”

“Best I hurry on,” Moonwick said regretfully. Which was true-sooner or later Ralf might
come looking for him. “I do hope I can return to sample that batch.” He shook hands with
Otik, who checked his ring after-ward.

Otik listened to the reassuring thump of the ken-der's departure down the stairs, and
sighed. He said to himself, “There's one source of trouble gone, and no harm done. Now to
heat the alewort.” He walked to the back, looking for Tika.

While he was away, two fire swallows, a male and a female, flew in the open door and
pecked at the fine spicy powder spilled from the purse. The two of them flew out in
circles, squawking,

billing, and frenziedly pressing against each other's bodies.

After pouring the hops in the tun, Otik cleaned the stream- rounded heating stones and
scrubbed the iron tongs he used on them. The whole Inn grew warm as he built up the fire
and opened a wind-vent to blow the coals. The stones he laid on a flat clean slab of the
hearth; as each stone heated he lowered it with the tongs into the wort. Soon he was
sweating freely from the heat. He set the tongs down to wipe his forehead.

Without being asked, Tika picked them up, re moved several stones from the tun and swung
heated ones in, lowering them gently to avoid splashing. Otik puffed and watched, proud of
her. When he was younger, he would have needed no rest. For that matter, when Tika was
younger, he would not have let her spell him at the heating.

As the tun began steaming, Otik thought again to himself, “She's old enough for her own
place.” He shook his head, cast the problem from his mind, and tried to think only of the
new ale.

After the heating, Tika and Otik poured off the ale into smaller casks. Otik took care to
fill each cask only four-fifths full, because the alewort bubbled as it worked, and a full
cask could explode. Once, when Otik was young, he had overfilled one; it had taken weeks
to get the smell out of the Inn.

Each cask they finished they rolled carefully against the tree and set upright where it
would be in sunlight but away from outside walls. For the first seven days, the casks
would be warm and working, and the yeast would be settling out of it. After that, they
would move the casks, as gently as possible, into the store- room with the stone floor,
and give them until the next full moon to age in cool and quiet. If they had extra casks
by then, and if they had the energy, Otik and Tika would pour the beer into freshly washed
containers for its final aging. Often, Otik cast about for ex- cuses to avoid that stage;
scrubbing twice for each batch, and repouring half-done beer, seemed an awful lot of work
for a pleasant drink.

For now, though, the hard part of the brewing process was over, and it seemed to them both
that the alewort already smelled delicious. Tika, her troubles forgotten, or at least
submerged, sang another verse to 'The Song of Elen Waiting':

WILL SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHERE ALL THE TIME GOES COME AND LEAD ME AWAY BY THE HAND,

I KNOW DAY BY DAY I'M FADING AWAY; IT'S MORE THAN MY HEART CAN STAND.

IT'S NOT THAT HE KNEW MORE THAN ANY MEN DO, BUT HE KNEW ALL MY HEART EVER HAD; THE BIRDS
WATCH AND HEAR AND WAIT EVERY YEAR, BUT ALL OF THEIR SONGS ARE SAD.

Otik, resealing another cask, felt a shadow of what Tika heard in the song. “That's
pretty.” He looked at the worn and time- darkened casks. “We had songs like that when I
was a lad, too.”

“Like that one?” The girl was appalled. Surely no one had ever written a song that deep
and meaningful before.