"Another mug of ale for му friend," cried the homely dwarf. Tika, the young barmaid, sighed. It was late. Very late. And the red-haired teenager was tired. Even Tanis, who had come back to the Inn of the Last Home after all his friends had gone, looked drained. He sat there alone, save for the exuberant dwarf with the funny nose and drooping ears who had suddenly befriended him. Tanis, almond-shaped eyes thoughtful in his tanned face, shook his head at Tika. "No more ale," he said. "At least not for me." The barmaid planted her feet sturdily before the dwar- ven stranger and flung the bar rag over one shoulder. The bean-shaped common room in the Solace inn, once the site of hours of storytelling by Tanis and his companions, now stretched emptily behind her to the stonework fireplace. No flames flickered against the stonework to cheer the lonely room, and the dying embers added precious little warmth. All in all, Tanis thought, the atmosphere suited his mood just fine.
Tika, freckles standing out from her skinny face even in this failing light, challenged the stranger. "And you, sir?" she demanded. "You're finished for the night, isn't that so7"
The dwarf smiled at the barmaid and gave her a wink. "I wouldn't dream of drinking alone. Perhaps you'll have one with me?"
"Hmphh." The skinny teenager raised her chin and pressed her lips into a thin line.
"I guess that means no?"
"HmphhI" Tika's eyes flashed.
"What a vocabulary you have," the dwarf said, mock- seriously, his ears drooping a notch lower. "Myself, I love words. May I teach you the phrase, 'I'd be delighted to have a drink with you, Clotnik, you beguiling wretch?'" He grinned in a manner obviously intended to be charming.
She fought it, but just a bit of a smile creased her mouth.
Clotnik crowed. "I saw that!"
"Hmphh!" Tika ran off to the kitchen.
Tanis's tired eyes sparkled at Clotnik's playfulness, at Tika's shyness-which Tanis now saw would ripen into allure when she reached womanhood. Tanis remembered a time when he had been equally innocent. Laurana. Yes, he had felt the heady pleasure of a girl's meaningful gaze, and had it been possible, he might have answered that look with his heart. More recently there had been Kitiara. He had ended it with the hot-headed swordswoman just hours before, and for his honesty he had received a slap in the face that jarred his teeth loose. But even now he was wondering if he hadn't been a fool. It was too late to do anything about it; Kit had already left on her journey with Sturm. Tanis knew, with a black certainty, that he would not see Kit-or any of any of his companions- for five long years. And maybe not even then.
Tanis unknowingly clenched his hands. Whether from long ago or from mere moments past, his memories stabbed him deeply with a painful sense of loss… and the shine in his eyes vanished.
Clotnik laughed as Tika disappeared into the kitchen, but his expression quickly darkened when Otik, the innkeeper, emerged through those same doors with a tally sheet in his hands.
"I don't know how you managed to drink all that ale," Otik said with a trace of awe in his voice as he placed the tally sheet down on the table in front of Clotnik. "Yon must make a good living to build up such a bill," he added pointedly.
Clotnik squirmed for a moment and then brightened. "You've had such a busy night," he exclaimed, grabbing the innkeeper's hand and shaking it. "You must have made a small fortune. What is money, then, to such a successful businessman?" He hurried on, not giving Otik a chance to utter as much as a syllable. "Why, you don't need money. Money would be wasted on you!"
The rotund innkeeper glanced warily at Tanis. The half-elf merely shrugged.
"Money you could extract from anyone," the dwarf rambled on without bothering to draw breath, "but a demonstration of nearly unimaginable juggling skills… well, only Clotnik can give you that. And for this special performance," he quickly added in a kindly voice as he pulled a large traveling bag from beneath the table, "I won't ask for any payment at all except the money to cover this bill, plus two more mugs of ale. No, make that three-one for Tanis, one for me, and one for yourself."
Otik appeared uncertain, as though he didn't know what to do first: strangle the bamboozling little dwarf or simply tear out his tongue. After a moment's thought, the decision was firmly made. He'd strangle him and then tear out his tongue.
By then, Clotnik had opened his traveling bag and had extracted five intricately detailed, glistening balls, one of gold, one of silver, one of brass, one of iron, and the last one of delicate glass.
"Shall I juggle for you?" Clotnik asked the mesmerized innkeeper.
Otik didn't answer. He just stared at the obviously valuable balls grasped in the juggler's hands. His eyes protruded slightly in his round face.
"I think you've got his attention," Tanis said dryly. "In fact, you've got mine, as well. Not to mention young Tika's," he went on, gesturing toward the kitchen where the barmaid could be spied peeking through the doorway.
Clotnik looked back at the red-haired barmaid. "I love an audience," he said with a satisfied smile. "I live for this." And then he began to juggle. The balls of gold, silver, and glass shimmered in the candlelight as they flew up and down, creating a stark contrast with the heavy iron and brass balls that cut through the air around them.
"Juggling comes naturally to everyone," Clotnik said easily as he deftly plucked the glass ball out of the air and then threw it up again, this time from behind his back. "We juggle our friends, keeping one in the air while we squeeze attention from another. We juggle our work with our pleasure, our needs with our shame, and even our love with our hate. Everyone juggles, all of us trying to keep as many balls in the air as possible, trying to grab at each opportunity before it comes crashing down at our feet."
Now Clotnik juggled all five balls in a fast, tight circle, the round objects blurring from the speed with which he whipped them through the air.
"Take Tanis, for instance," the dwarf continued effortlessly. "Although he says little that is personal-after all, we've only just met-he talks of leaving Solace at dawn. Yet he doesn't sleep. Why? Perhaps he has yet to decide where he will go, come the morning sun. It must be so, because he will not speak of his destination. Ah, what mystery and intrigue! Don't tell me he is not juggling!"
The juggler continued. "Where are his friends? Scattered to the four corners of Krynn for five years, he tells me. So Tanis tosses up a ball of loneliness"-and Clotnik used a deft movement to single out the gold ball for a heartbeat before returning the glittering orb to the flashing circle.
"Meanwhile," the juggler commented, 'Tanis tells me he plans to make his journey alone. Ah, toss up a ball of danger, for no one should travel alone in these troubled times. And even as those two balls travel in their circular arc, Tanis must keep the ball of his birth in the air, as well. Because, of course, his ultimate juggling act is between his elven and human halves."
Otik, arrested in the act of wiping his hands on a streaked white apron, drew a sharp breath and gave a troubled glance at Tanis. He didn't know how the half-elf would react to Clotnik's indelicate remark.
The half-elf, betraying no emotion in his voice, carefully said, 'Tell me, my friend, what do you juggle besides those balls? Do you juggle your life's breath somewhere between impertinence and honesty?" His hand shifted casually to the sword at his left side, although like most creatures of elven blood, he never would have taken a life unnecessarily-and certainly not out of annoyance alone. Still, it might not hurt to caution the young dwarf that not everyone would be so forgiving. "I wonder how many times you have misjudged your audience and said the wrong thing to the wrong person." Tanis moved his hand back to the table top.
"Many times," Clotnik cheerfully conceded, his eyes flashing green in the candlelight. "I have often been cut down to size. You know," he added with a mischievous grin, "I used to be much taller."
"Besides free drinks," asked Tanis, narrowing his eyes, "what is it that you want?"
"Want?"
"He hears well, Otik, don't you think?"
The innkeeper nodded, his eyes drawn again to the whirling balls that Clotnik now juggled in yet another pattern, this time using his right hand to juggle three in a circle and his left hand to juggle the other two in the traditional up and down method.
"I'd like to travel with you," Clotnik said guardedly.
Tanis laughed shortly. "Even though you don't know where we'd be going?"
"I didn't say I didn't know where you were going," Clotnik corrected. "I said you didn't know."
Tanis cocked his head to one side and considered the juggler.
Clotnik began tossing the balls high into the air from behind his back, each ball nearly touching the ceiling of the inn as he juggled all five in a huge ellipse.
'Tour father must be very proud of you!" said Otik suddenly, overcome by the juggler's performance.
At those words, Clotnik's head whipped around to look at the innkeeper. And in that instant, the juggler lost his concentration. He tried to recover, but it was too late. The iron and brass balls thudded to the floor, one just missing Otik's foot. Clotnik managed to grab the gold and the silver spheres, and then he lunged for the swiftly falling, fragile glass ball. Unfortunately, it had sailed out of his reach. "No!" he cried.
Tanis, swift and graceful, dove out of his chair and, landing on the floor with arms outstretched, plucked the delicate glass ball out of the air.
Tika burst into applause from her vantage point at the kitchen door. Otik cheered. And Clotnik let out a sigh of relief that sounded like the whoosh of a metalsmith's bellows. "I can't replace that if it breaks," explained the juggler, wiping the sweat from his slanted forehead with a sleeve.
"Then why do you risk it7" Tanis replied, examining the intricate blue and green design on the otherwise clear glass ball before handing it back to Clotnik.
"Why bother juggling at all if there isn't some risk involved?" Clotnik asked nonchalantly, returning the five balls to his traveling bag. "After all, who would go see a man fight a hatori to the death if the hatori had no teeth?"
"Good point, but why fight a sand crocodile in the first place?" Tanis retorted.
Clotnik gave a short laugh. "I'm going to enjoy traveling with you," he said. "You have a lively mind-not to mention a quick hand."
Tanis kept his tone urbane. "It seems you've accepted an invitation that I have yet to offer."
"You will offer."
"Why?"
"Because," Clotnik said, leaning over to whisper, "I can take you to a man who knew your father."
Tanis felt the color drain from his face. A hand, cold and inexorable as death, clenched his ribcage with killing force. The half-elf sat in stunned silence, his heart thumping wildly.
His father.
All his life he had wanted to learn something, anything, about the man who had spawned him. All he knew was that once, during a warring time between humans and elves, a human soldier had had his way with an elven maiden, Tanis's mother, leaving her broken, battered, and with child. What kind of man would do that? Tanis questioned yet again. What kind of blood did the half-elf have running in his veins? Tanis's mother had died only months after Tanis's birth, leaving him to the care of distant elven relatives-and part of neither world, human nor elven. After ninety-seven years of life, Tanis still wondered about that human warrior. But how could this juggling dwarf know anything about the stranger, no doubt long dead, who was his father?
Clotnik seemed well satisfied with the reaction his comment had had on Tanis. So he turned to Otik and declared, "As for you, my fine innkeeper, have I paid my bill?"
This time it was Otik's turn to squirm; he hated giving away his hard-brewed ale. Yet the juggler had truly put on a magnificent show. "Don't you have anything you can give me toward the settlement of this debt?" Otik pleaded.
"Not a thing," admitted Clotnik, "except my showmanship. Come now, isn't that worth more than any metal coin?"
"Well-"
"So it's settled," he announced triumphantly. "Now, where are the three mugs of ale that are part of our bargain?"
To Otik's surprise, Tika was already carrying them out of the kitchen.
*****
Tanis stood on a rise looking back at Solace in the valley below. He and Clotnik had left before dawn, and just then, as the sun's first rays flooded across the top of the valley, they illuminated the village's majestic treetops like a crown of jewels. Lower down, radiant golden shadows traced the homes and businesses in the vallen- wood limbs in which they were perched. By far the dominant feature in the landscape was the Inn of the Last Home, nestled in tree branches atop a staircase that spi- raled around the trunk of the huge tree. Tanis resolutely shoved aside the memories of convivial times at the Inn; the future beckoned now. If only it were as predictable, as illuminated, as the staircase to Otik's establishment.
"How long before we meet this man you spoke of7" Tanis asked.
Clotnik, his ears drooping still farther in the throes of what appeared to be a minotaur-sized hangover, winced at Tanis's brisk tone. "Several days," he said quietly. "Maybe longer. You must be patient."
"Did this man know my father personally?"
"He'll tell you everything when you meet him."
"Were they good friends?" Tanis persisted.
The dwarf sighed and clutched his head. "Just wait," he begged. "What's your hurry? You've waited ninety-seven years to learn more of your father. What matters a few more days?"
"Every day matters," Tanis replied, noting that Clotnik somehow knew exactly how old he was. Very few knew his total years. Any doubts he harbored about the juggler's genuine knowledge about his father were muted by that one offhand remark. "I have something to do as soon as I finish meeting with your friend," the half-elf added vaguely.