The Cataclysm (12 page)

“But enough prologuizing.” Graym was swaying on his feet. “I can't stand a fella who
prologuizes all the time. Let's say I'm forgiving and let it go at that. And, now, I'm
going to ask who's been sneaking ale while I wasn't looking. I expect an honest answer.
Who was it?”

Jarek raised one hand. The Wolf brothers each raised a hand. Graym looked at them in
silence. Darll raised a hand, his chains pulling the other after it. After a long pause,
Graym sighed. “Good to have it out in the open at last. Better to be honest with each other, I say.”

“ 'True thieves best rob false owners,' ” Darll muttered.

“I've always thought that a fine saying, sir,” Graym said. “Witty, yet simple. But I don't
see it applying here.”

Darll shook his head. “Still and all,” Graym continued, "we've done well.

Three months on the road, and we've four barrels left.“ He shook a finger at the others.
”No sneaking drinks from here. We'll need it all at the end of the road in Krinneor."

Jarek said eagerly, “Tell us about Krinneor, Graym.” “What? Again?” “Please!” Jarek wasn't
alone. Fen and Fan begged to hear the story, and even Darll settled, resignedly, to listen. Graym picked up a bowl and took a
deep swig of Skull-

Splitter. “I've told you this night after night, day after day - in the Black Rains, when
the dust clouds came through, and in the afterquakes, and when we'd spent a long day
dragging this wagon over flood-boils, potholes, and heaved-up rock on the road. And now
you say you're not tired of it.” He looked at them fondly. "I'm not either.

“Back in Sarem, I was nobody. Every town needs a cooper, but they don't care about him.
They buy his barrels and leave. And I'd watch them, and I'd know they were off - to fill
the barrels, travel up roads, and sell their stock.”

Jarek leaned forward. “The city, tell us about the city!”

“I'm coming to that.” Graym loved this part. "Every time a stranger came down the road,
I'd ask him where he'd been. And he'd talk about Tarsis by the sea, or the temples of Xak
Tsaroth, and one even showed me a machine from Mount Nevermind, where the gnomes live. The
machine didn't work, of course, but it was a lovely little thing, all gears and sprockets
and wires.

“But one and all, dusty from the road and tired from travel, told me about Krinneor, and
the more I heard, the more I wanted to see it.” Graym's eyes shone. “Golden towers! Marble
doors! And excellent drains.” He looked at them all earnestly. “I hear that's very
important for a city.”

They nodded. Graym went on. “After the Claychasm - ” “Cataclysm,” Darll snapped.
“Cataclysm, thank you, sir. I keep forgetting. After that night, when the ground shook and the western sky was all fire, people were frightened.
They quit buying barrels, saying that trade was too risky. That's when I realized that no
one was coming down the road from Krinneor, and no one was going there.”

He tapped the bowl of Skull-Splitter, which he had emptied again. "And that's when I
realized there was no more good Sarem ale going from Sarem to Krinneor. The poor beggars there would be as dry as a sand pit in no time. “So I made these.” He thumped
the broken barrel refilled the bowl from it. “Extra thick staves, double- caulked, double-banded. Bungs four
fingers deep. Heads of the last vallenwoods in stock this far west. Harder than any man
has seen. I spent everything I had making them, then borrowed from you all to finish them.
And when the bailey heard we were going, he asked me to take you, sir, to the Bailey of
Krinneor for safekeeping.” He nodded respectfully to Darll.

“For prison, you fat fool,” Darll said. “I can't believe I let a man like that capture me,
especially after I beat the town soldiery. A scrawny, bald-headed, weak-armed man with no
more strength in him than in a dead dwarf's left - ”

“You wouldn't have if you hadn't been drunk,” Jarek pointed out. He looked at Darll
admiringly. “Single-handed, and you beat them all. If you hadn't been drunk - ”

Graym interrupted. “And I hope it serves to remind you, sir, that ale is not only a
blessing, but can also be a curse, and not to be taken lightly.” He downed the bowl of
Skull- Splitter. “Back to my story. I took you, sir, and the tenpiece from the bailey - ”

“Then we got the ale,” Jarek said. “And the horses,” Fen and Fan said together. “Without
paying for them,” Darll finished. “And I gathered victuals and water and spare clothes and
knapsacks, and off we set” - Graym pointed to the east - “down the long, dangerous road!
Facing hardship! Facing hunger and thirst...” He broke off. “Not as much thirst as I
thought, apparently, but some thirst. Facing the unknown! Facing a ruined world! And for
what?” He looked around at the watching faces. “I ask you, for what?”

Jarek blinked. “For Krinneor.”

“True enough. For the golden spires, the marble towers, the excellent drains, and the
fortunes that made them. Think of it!” Graym waved an arm unsteadily. “A city with all the
gold you can dream of, and nothing to drink. And us with a cart full.” He glanced to one
side. “A cart HALF full of the best ale left in the world!”

“Our fortunes are made. We can ask what we want for it, and they'll pay twice what we ask.
One barrel of Sarem ale will be worth the world to them, and five barrels leaves us one
apiece.”

Darll looked up, startled. “You're counting me?”

“You did your share on the road, sir,” Graym said. “Each of us gets profits from one
barrel of ale. And, if we're all clever - ” he looked at Jarek and amended hastily, “ - or
at least if we stick together, we get exclusive Sarem trade rights to Krinneor. We'll have
all the food we want, and houses.”

“And a sword?” Jarek asked eagerly. “I've always wanted a sword. My mother wouldn't let me
have anything sharp.”

Graym smiled at him. “And a sword. And maybe a quick parole for friend Darll, and a tavern
for me to run - ”

“And a woman for me,” Fenris said firmly. “And me,” Fanris echoed. Graym scratched his
head, looked dubious. “Right,” Darll said. “I'm sure that somewhere in Krinneor there's a pair of dirty, nearsighted women with no self-respect left.”

The Wolf brothers brightened considerably. *****

By late night, the blanket screens were down and they'd piled wood on to make a man-high
flame. The Wolf brothers were singing a duet about a bald woman who'd broken the heart of
a barber, and Darll was weeping.

“You 'member,” he said, his arm around Graym, “'member when the bounty hunters attacked,
and I saved us?”

“You did well, sir,” said Graym.

Darll snuffled. “I was going to run off, but then I remembered you had the keys to the
manacles.”

Graym patted his pocket. “Still do, sir.”

Darll, tears running down both cheeks, wiped his nose. “You know that when you free me,
I'm going to kill you.”

Graym patted Darll's shoulder. “Anybody would, sir”

Darll nodded, wept, belched, tried to say something more, and fell asleep sitting up.

Graym lay down, rolled over on his back, and stared at the stars. They were faint in the
dusty air, but to Graym they shone a little clearer every night. “I used to be afraid of
them,” he said comfortably to himself. “They used to be gods. Now they're just stars.”

*****

When the sun came up the next morning, it rose with what Graym heard as an ear-splitting
crack.

He opened one eye as little as possible, then struggled to his feet. “Isn't life an
amazing thing?” he said shakily to himself. “If you'd told me yesterday that every hair on
my head could hurt, I wouldn't have believed you.”

Fenris stared out at the dusty field nearby and quavered, “What's that terrible noise?”

Graym looked where Fenris was pointing and found the source. “Butterflies.”

Fenris nodded - a mistake. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell over with a thud.
Fanris, beside him, whimpered at the sound of the impact.

Graym, moving as silently as possible, crept over to Darll, shook him by the shoulder.
Darll's manacles rattled.

Darll flinched and opened two remarkably red eyes. “If I live,” he murmured fuzzily, “I'm
going to kill you.”

Graym sighed and rubbed his own head. “I thought you already had, sir.”

*****

By midmorning, they were back on the road and near the first rank of western hills. Graym,
pulling the cart along with Darll, was almost glad they had lost so many barrels. The
wagon lurched to a stop at every rock in the road . . . and there were many rocks.

At least the companions were feeling better. Skull- Splitter's effect, though true to its
name, wore off quickly. Jarek was humming to himself, trying to remember the Wolf
brothers' song of the night before. Darll, after swearing at him in strained tones for
some time, was now correcting him on the melody and humming along.

Fenris, perched on the cart, yelled, “Trouble ahead!” Fanris gazed, quivered. “Are they
dangerous?” Darll grated his teeth. “Kender! I hate the nasty little things. Kill 'em all. Keep 'em away. They'll rob you blind and giggle the whole time.”

Graym looked up from watching the rutted road. Before he knew what was happening, he was
surrounded by kender: eager, energetic, and pawing through their belongings. The kender had a sizable bundle of their own, pulled on a travois, but the
bundle changed shape ominously.

“Ho! Ha!” Darll swung two-handed at them, trying to make good on his threat to kill them
all. They skipped and ducked, ignoring the length of chain that whistled murderously over
their heads.

“Here now, little fellers,” Graym said, holding his pack above his head. “Stay down! Good
morning!” He smiled at them and skipped back and forth to keep his pack out of reach, and
he seemed like a giant kender himself.

One of the kender, taller than the others and dressed in a brown robe with the hood
clipped off, smiled back. “Good morning. Where are we?”

“You're in Goodlund, halfway to Sarem if you started from just west of Kendermore.” Graym
snatched a forked stick from the hands of the tall kender - who didn't seem to mind - and
hung his pack from it, lifted it over his head.

“Where are you going?”

“Oh, around.” The tall kender took a forked stick from one of the others, who didn't seem
to mind either. “East, mostly.” He spun the stick, making a loud whistle. “Do you know,
the gods told me that the world's greatest disaster would happen in a land to the west?
Only it didn't.”

“What are you talking about?” Graym looked openly astonished. 'The Catcollision?"

“Cataclysm!” Darll snarled.

“Cataclysm, thank you, sir. I keep forgetting.” Graym turned back to the kender. “All that
happened in the east, you know.”

“I know,” the kender said, and sighed. “The gods lied to me. They did it to save our lives
- we were going west to see the run - but still, a lie's a lie.” He fingered the torn
collar of his cleric's robe. “So we don't believe in the gods anymore.”

“Good enough,” Graym said, brightening. “Smashed the world, didn't they? We're well rid of
that lot.”

“But they did save our lives,” Fenris pointed out.

“From horrible deaths,” Fanris added, “like being smashed.”

“Or squished, Fan.”

The tall kender shrugged. “You miss a lot, worrying about things like that. Say, what's
that smell?” His nose wrinkled. “Dirt, mostly,” Jarek said. The Wolf brothers scowled. “It's a perfectly natural smell,“ Graym said. ”Strong, but natural.“ He smiled down at the kender. ”My name's Graym.”

The kender smiled back. “Tarli Half-kender. Half man, half kender.”

Graym looked startled, then shrugged. “Well, I'm liberal-minded.”

He offered his hand, taking care to keep his pack and pockets out of reach. But at a shout
from Jarek, Graym whipped his head around.

“Here now! Off the cart. Mind the barrels.” His knapsack fell from the stick.

Tarli caught the pack nimbly, flipped it over once in his deft fingers, and passed it to
Graym, who was surprised that a kender would return anything. “Thank you,” he said to
Tarli, but his mind was on the kender falling and climbing all over the cart. The barrels,
three times their size, wobbled dangerously. “Don't they know they could be killed?”

Tarli looked puzzled. “I don't think it would make much difference. Like I said, you can't
worry about things like that, like Skorm Bonelover, coming from the east.”

“Who?” The name sounded vaguely familiar to Graym's still-fuddled mind.

“Skorm,” Tarli said helpfully, “the Fearmaker, the Crusher of Joy.”

“Oh, THAT Skorm. You know him, do you?”

“Only by reputation. Everyone's talking about him.” Tarli looked to the east. “Well, we'd
better keep going if we want to meet up with him.” He put two fingers into his mouth and
whistled.

The crowd of kender scrambled off the cart and scampered down the road again, pulling the
travois behind them. To Graym's watchful eyes, their pockets seemed fuller, and their
bundle of supplies seemed larger, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“Cunning little things.” Graym watched the kender running happily away. “Good attitudes,
the lot of them. You can't keep them down.”

“I'll try,” Darll grated, “if you'll let me go.” He held out his manacled hands.

“Ah!” Graym reached into his pack. "Can't do that, sir but I could give your arms a rest while we're dragging the cart. You promise not to run
off, sir?

He vaguely remembered Darll's saying something last night that should make Graym nervous,
but dragging the cart was hard work, and Darll deserved a reward.

Darll looked sly. “Word of honor.” He braced his feet for a quick start and smiled at
Graym.

The Wolf brothers ducked under the cart. Even Jarek looked suspicious.

“Right, then.” Graym fumbled in the pack, then reached into his left pocket. . .

Then checked his right breeches pocket, his hood, and his jacket.. .

Then stared at the departing kender. He looked back at Darll's impatient face. “Life,” he
said thoughtfully, “can be funny, sir . . .”