The Kase of the Kurious Kender

The Kase of the Kurious Kender

“Brothers that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something.” – Lemony Snicket

The coast of western Solamnia was truly magnificent—salt encrusted black rocks glittering like precious stones under the caressing onslaught of a pale summer sun—and Palin Majere took the time to enjoy the rare scenery, appreciating the majesty of the sea despite his recent, unfortunate experience with boats. The fact that he was watching it from the back of his horse rather than in another boat certainly improved his appreciation, but the young mage's solemn regard for the wind-tossed waves was doomed to interruption, accompanied as he was by his two elder brothers, at least one of whom was never silent for long.

"Are we there yet?" Sturm moaned from the back of the line. 

"You know as well as I do that we're not," Tanin snapped ahead of Palin. 

"Fine—are we almost there yet?" Sturm corrected himself, moaning no less even in the grip of linguistic clarification.

"No."

"Almost almost there?"

Despite his new-found patience for the antics of his middle brother, Palin could not resist the overpowering temptation to roll his eyes before he returned his attention to the sea, contemplating those wonders, both terrible and magnificent, that dwelt beyond his sight—wonders he now knew with certainty existed.

"What do you think, Palin?"

"Hmm?" Palin murmured.

"I said: according to the map, we should be in the next town in about two hours. We could stop there for the night," Tanin suggested.

"So soon?" Palin frowned. He might be new to this adventuring business, but he was under the impression that one generally didn't stop riding when the sun was still high in the sky.

"The next town after that would be smack in the middle of Solamnia, and it would would take us clear through the night to get there. You have to think ahead when you're on the road—sometimes time lost one day is time saved the next, little brother."

Palin frowned at the patronizing voice, so familiar from his childhood and so recently thought abandoned to the new understanding between the three brothers.

I should have known better.

"I made that mistake the first time out," Tanin continued more gently, perhaps sensing his irritation. "Sturm and me ended up tumbling through a wood half the night."

"I ran into a tree," Sturm said, murderously cheerful. "Got knocked out and put two more days on our journey."

Despite himself, Palin grinned at his brothers' bumbling early misadventures. He had always been excited to hear such tales when he had still been the baby of the three, stuck back at home. 

"Some days," he said, “I think that Mama and Papa and Uncle Raistlin and Tanis and the others took all of the good adventures and didn't leave any for the rest of us."

"Tell me about it!" Sturm groaned. "They got the War of the Lance and dragons and battling the Queen of Darkness herself, and all we get is a stupid rock and some crazy women with spears!"

"That 'stupid rock' was the legendary Greygem of Gargath," Tanin reminded his brother. "Not exactly a pebble."

"And by the time our parents were our age, they'd already saved the world," Sturm wailed, as if he hadn't heard a word from his elder brother. "A pretty tall order to live up to, and we haven't exactly been given many opportunities—and we can't even tell anyone about the Greygem anyway!"

"Not that anyone would believe us if we did," Palin added.

"Yeah," Tanin said glumly.

All three brothers sighed and flicked their reigns to pick up the pace, once more united in their tentative hope that some world-destroying plot might be found a tad farther up the road.

Right on schedule, the Majeres arrived two hours hence in the village of Sweetwater. After some Solamnic muttering and glaring at Palin's robes and staff, the town guards permitted them to traverse a bridge suspended over the shallow, slushy moat that surrounded the improbably named town. All three brothers were tired and hungry from the road, and no arguments were had as they arrived at the local inn and handed their horses to the stable boy—who turned out to be no boy at all, but a typically gregarious gnome. But once inside, the inn made up for that unpleasant surprise. The fire had just been started in its grate, and the flames had painted the walls a warm red. Palin headed at once to the table closest and sat gazing ceaselessly into the flames, as attentive as if they might reveal some ancient secret to him. 

An attractive, dark-haired young server approached their table shortly after. She wore the ruffled skirt and low-cut blouse that seemed the uniform of barmaids across Ansalon, and already Sturm's eyes were glued to the suggestion of cleavage.

"Greetings, strangers. What brings you to our humble town?" the girl asked.

Anticipating his brothers' responses, Palin moaned with despair, but only on the inside, where no one could hear him.

"We're on our way to Lord Gunther to become Knights of the Crown," Sturm boasted, visibly puffing out his chest.

Solemnly, Tanin nodded his agreement, placing a steady, responsible hand on the pommel of his great sword.

The girl let out a low, impressed whistle. "Sounds exciting. And is this your squire?" she asked, aiming a mocking glance at Palin.

Witlessly, Tanin and Sturm sputtered their way through an explanation to which the girl paid no attention. Palin's lips quirked into a slight smile.

"What can I get you boys tonight?" the barmaid finally asked the would-be knights and their "squire."

"Potatoes?" Sturm asked eagerly.

"Baked, boiled, or fried?"

"Fried," the two elder brothers chorused predictably.

"With ale. Dwarven if you have it," Tanin added.

"Two fried potatoes with ale. And you, sir squire?" Her dark eyes danced conspiratorially.

A laugh escaped Palin. "Stew and white wine." He ordered his preferred beverage with less mortification than he had in the past. He was in no way eager to repeat his recent acquaintance with that great rite of passage, the hangover.

"Coming right up."

"I don't know why I bother getting fried potatoes away from home," Tanin sighed when the woman had gone. "They're never the same as back home."

"Nothing's like the Inn of the Last Home," Sturm pronounced this with a nostalgic longing that seemed all out of proportion to the month or so they'd been gone from Solace. Still both Tanin and Palin couldn't help looking just a bit wistful themselves.

The evening meal came shortly, and though Palin's brothers did seem less satisfied than they would have been had Caramon or Tika been making the potatoes, neither complained. For himself, the mage was happy enough with his stew, and the white wine was even the dry, elven vintage he preferred.

When the bowls were empty and the glasses drained, the brothers stood with a clamber and shuffle.

"I don't trust that stable gnome," Tanin said darkly. "You check the horses, Palin; make sure they've been rubbed down and fed. Sturm and I'll get a room."

Though he was certain that Tanin simply wanted to avoid the gnome himself, Palin nodded in deference to his brother, collected the Staff of Magius, and went back outside to the stable.

"I'm here to check on our horses," he announced to the gnome, although he wished that he knew some more cunning, subtle manner of going about his task. Raistlin would have known how, Palin thought wistfully. 

"They'rerighthereIdon'tthinkthere'sanyreasontocheckonthemI'vealreadyfedthemandgiventhemwaterwithmylatestinventiontheFeedMaster6000-"

"Invention!" Palin exclaimed. Curse all gnomes!

"Yesit'stheMark3doyouwanttoseeit?"

"Yes!"

Palin's thick white robes slapped his legs as he jogged after the eager stable gnome. To his astonishment, the horses they passed all seemed healthy and placidly happy. Perhaps he needn't worry after all.

"HereitistheFeedMaster6000Mark3thelatestinscientificand-"

"It's very...impressive," Palin said slowly, eyeing the great, cumbersome contraption and wondering with awe why all of the horses weren't dead.

"YesasIwassayingit'sthelatestinscientific-"

"Where are my horses?" Palin interrupted sharply.

The gnome huffed. "Nooneeverhasanyinterestinscienceanymoretheageofgreatdiscoveriesisdea-"

"Horses," Palin repeated firmly, while his fingers itched to cast some motivating cantrip.

You're a White Robe, he reminded himself. White Robe. Benign. Benevolent. Magic for the greater good. Not spells for motivating recalcitrant, bloody-minded gnomes!

"NowwheredidIputthatfilingsystemit’sthelatestinscientific..."

Palin carefully resisted the urge to scream.

"Ohrighthereyesfollowme."

Thank Paladine!

Feeling terribly exhausted given how little labour he had actually performed, Palin trudged after the gnome.

"Oh dear,” said the gnome.

Oh dear? Oh dear?

If there was one thing that should alarm a good, gods-fearing mage of any stripe of robe, it was a gnome who spoke both intelligibly and limited himself to two short words. With great reluctance, Palin lifted his gaze.

He wasn't at all surprised to be confronted by three empty stalls.

"I don'tunderstandhowthishappened!” the gnome insisted. “TheywererightherejustamomentagowhenIlockedthestallwiththelatestingnomishlockingtechnology!"

Palin closed his eyes and put his fingers to his temples to ward off an encroaching migraine.

"Let's examine this logically," he said, more to himself than to the gnome.

Yet the gnome responded. "Ohyeslogicthat'sawonderfullyscientificmethodquiteadvancedforoneofyourspecies!"

"Thank you. Exactly when did you last see the horses?"

"Ibelieveitmusthavebeenroughlytenminutesagoorsixthousandsecondstobemorescientificallypre-"

"What were you doing then?"

"Feedingthehorsesacarefullynutritionallybalanced-"

"Wonderful. And no one else came in after that?"

"No."

Palin waited, and the waited some more, but no addendum appeared to be forthcoming.

"Open the stall doors, please," he requested.

The gnome opened all of the stalls, and Palin methodically examined each. The mage was about to give up when he noticed a small scrap of blue and red fabric stuck in the bottom hinge of the third stall. He pulled on it, but it refused to budge even when he moved the door on the hinge, and he resorted to the knife up his sleeve. To his relief, the cunning sheath (often more cunning than himself) yielded to his mastery.

"Verycolourfultheblendwouldhavebeenachievedbytying-"

"I know," Palin said softly, still kneeling next to the door. "It's a popular technique among kender."

"Aremarkablyscientificmethodforanunscientificspecies."

“Even a stopped watch is right twice a day,” Palin said blandly.

"Whatamarvellousinsight!PerhapsIshoulddeviseanequationtoconfirmtheaccuracyofyoursupposition."

"Yes, do," the mage muttered. 

"Palin!” Sturm’s booming voice filled the stable. “Is something wrong? You've been in here a long time!"

"I'd say something is wrong,” the younger brother said, slowly standing. “Our horses are gone."

Sturm rushed into view and stood, gaping at the empty stalls. "Gone! But they were just here!"

"Approximately ten minutes ago. But now they're gone, and only this-" Palin indicated the scrap of fabric "-was left behind."

"None of them had that on them," Sturm protested, his brow wrinkled with confusion.

"No, I mean the thief left it."

"But it could have been left at any time. How do you know it's from the thief?"

"It's fresh. The colours haven't faded, and it's clean. No muck or moisture damage from the hay and the animals."

"That makes sense," Sturm said with admiration. "So what do we do with it?"

"It's kender-fashion, and likely only a kender could make off with three horses without anyone noticing."

"Makes me wish Uncle Tas was here," Sturm joked.

"As much as I love Uncle Tas, he'd most likely make off with the rest of the horses."

Sturm laughed, ignoring the slighted gnome, who huffed and brushed past him on his way back to work.

"So now what?" the big warrior asked his magician brother.

"Now," Palin said grimly, "we tell Tanin."

"Well, that's great! That's just...brilliant. What in the Nine Hells do we do now?"  Red-faced, Tanin paced the small room he'd rented for all three brothers. "We don't have enough coin to buy three new horses."

"Stay in town and wash dishes for our keep?" Sturm suggested, grinning.

"This isn't the time for jokes!"

"It never is," Sturm murmured to Palin, who masked his own mirth by loudly clearing his throat.

"The answer is obvious," the mage pointed out. "We need to stay and find the horses."

"They could be ten miles outside of town by now!" Tanin stormed.

"Maybe, but I don't think so. The gnome might not have noticed a thief, but only because he was so preoccupied with his inventions. The town guards would have been suspicious of anyone alone with three horses, much less a kender."

"So, we go to the guards-"

"And we'll know if the kender is still in town," Palin concluded.

"He could have taken another way," Sturm suggested.

"Unlikely," Tanin snorted. "There might not be a wall around the town, but the only way the horses would be able to make it over that moat would be to swim—and three horses being urged through ten feet of crap and rubbage by one kender?"

"I guess not," Sturm admitted.

"Then we go to the town gate and find out if the guards have seen an exceptionally light-fingered kender," Tanin said, and marched out of the room, leaving his brothers to catch up with him. 

"Aint seen no damned kenders," the tall, bulky guard said stiffly.

Palin winced at the man's language and thought longingly of school. The other students might have given him the evil eye, but at least they had had a more than tentative grasp of Common while they were whispering that the ghost of his uncle was going to possess him and kill them all.

"Have you seen anyone leaving the town with three extra horses?" Tanin persisted. "A black one and two brown ones? One of the brown ones has white spots on its flanks?"

"Nope," the guard grunted succinctly, crossing his arms and glaring at the brothers. Palin wondered if being monosyllabic were a prerequisite for becoming a town guard. In his admittedly limited travels, he'd yet to meet a more eloquent example of the profession.

"Those horses are ours and they've been stolen," Tanin explained. "If you do see them, I'd appreciate it if you'd hold up whoever's with them and send for Tanin Majere at the inn."

"Could be yer tryin' to steal ‘em right now."

"I guess it could be," Tanin said. Palin lifted an eyebrow and watched as a small flash of movement passed between the two men.

"See what I can do," the guard said more agreeably.

Another flash.

"Tanin Majere at the inn," the guard parroted, suddenly all smiles.

"Thanks," Tanin said dryly.

"Say—Majere! You wouldn't happen to be related to Caramon Majere, would you?"

The inevitable chest-pufffing followed, and even Palin couldn't help but smile a bit proudly, though he was very certain to leave his chest right where it was.

"Sure we are!" Sturm boasted. "We're his sons!"

"Well, why didn't you say so?" the guard exclaimed. "Coulda saved a lotta trouble."

"We don't like to trade on our parents' fame too much," Tanin said with an exaggerated modesty that made Palin roll his eyes.

"Of course not—big strapping lads like you, er, two... Say, you a wizard?" the guard demanded, squinting at Palin with renewed suspicion. He evidently hadn't been one of the guards that had let them into the town and subjected them to the first round of questioning, although frankly to Palin the soldiers mostly all looked the same. 

 "Yes, I am a mage of the White Robes.” Palin stressed his allegiance to the god of white magic, but he was already certain it wouldn't make any difference to this man. 

"We don't need your kind here! Son of Caramon Majere or no—'specially son of Caramon Majere."

The unspoken connection hung in the air, and Tanin and Sturm shifted uneasily.

"We'll be gone as soon as we find our horses," Palin said patiently.

"Dunno. Think I should ask the boss," the guard grunted, returning to his monosyllabic roots.

"Just a day or two," Tanin suggested, and there was a final flash between them. The guard looked down and his eyes briefly widened.

"Well...mayhap it'd be allowed," the man conceded.

"How many more nights are we going to be sleeping on the ground?" Palin asked as the brothers walked back into town.

"All of them, most likely," Tanin sighed. "But if we find the horses, at least it won't take us month to walk to Lord Gunther."

"Sorry about that," Palin added stiffly.

"About what?"

"About...me."

"There's nothing to apologise for!" Tanin flared. "It's just his own small-mindedness that frightened him. You had nothing to do with it!"

"Yeah," Sturm said with defiance.

"Yeah," Palin said wistfully, twirling the Staff of Magius and staring into the crystal.

"Are you certain you haven't seen anything?" Tanin asked for what seemed the thousandth time.

"No, haven't seen any kenders," the townswoman said quickly before hurrying on.

"This is impossible!" Tanin exclaimed, throwing his heavily muscled arms into the air with sheer exasperation.

"I think we're going about it the wrong way," Palin said slowly. "These people obviously don't want to talk to us, so they're not going to admit it even if there were an army of kender standing right in front of us all."

"Army of kender! They'd steal the whole town out from under us and the clothes right off our backs," Sturm snorted.

"Exactly," said Palin.

"Eh?" Sturm blinked.

"I see where you're going," Tanin said after a moment. "Don't ask if people have seen any kender; ask if their belongings are going missing."

"Then follow the trail," Sturm finished.

"And maybe we should start with the one person who's been even a bit friendly to us," Palin suggested.

"Who's that?" Sturm asked, kicking a stone from the road.

"The barmaid."

"I don't know. She was a little sarcastic," Sturm said doubtfully.

You caught that, did you? Palin silently sneered and then gave himself a hefty mental slap for the cruelty.

"Palin's right," Tanin said. "She's the only one who's been even a bit helpful. Might as well start with her."

Feeling even guiltier, Palin didn't acknowledge the praise but started, red-faced and brisk, back to the inn.

Tanin jogged after him. "You feeling all right, little brother?"

"Yes, I'm well," Palin said with exaggerated formality.

"Uh huh. And you'd tell me if you weren't."

Palin sneaked a glance at him. "Maybe."

"That's what I thought," Tanin sighed.

"Let's just find our horses and get out of here," Sturm said as he caught up with them.

"I thought that's what we were trying to," Palin snapped.

"Boys," Tanin warned, mock-paternally.

"Yes, Dad?" The other two brothers chorused.

Tanin heaved another sigh. "What I have to put up with."

Sturm laughed, and Palin found himself joining in the hearty chuckles. Annoy him though they may, he could never stay angry at his brothers for long.

Sometimes he thought that life would be so much easier if he could.

"Maybe you should talk to the barmaid, Palin," Sturm suggested. "She seemed to like you."

"She did?" Palin asked doubtfully. He certainly hadn't noticed any such thing. "I thought you said she was sarcastic."

His two elder brothers exchanged identical, amused glances. "To us," Sturm said. "She was sarcastic to me and Tanin, not you. Trust us. You might not notice such things, but she liked you."

Palin grunted doubtfully. "If you think so."

"We think so," Tanin echoed Sturm.

"Women like the studious, quiet types," the middle brother added.

"They do?" Palin asked with what seemed to him to be a truly unusual amount of blank stupidity.

His brothers laughed. "You're funny, little brother," Sturm informed him, sending Palin's eyebrow flying to unprecedented heights.

"Fine, so Palin talks to the lady," Tanin firmly brought the conversation back to business. "Hopefully he'll discover something useful."

Palin sat in the warmest, brightest corner of the common room and took out his spellbook, settling in to memorize what he'd previously eliminated from his repertoire. He found that he was only missing a sleep spell—humiliatingly lost when a tossing and turning Sturm, plagued by lingering seasickness, had begged the mage to cast it and give him a solid night's rest. Other than the brief and enlightening interlude with Dougan Redhammer, the young wizard's travels had so far been intolerably peaceful.

Close-eyed and murmuring magic words to himself in the effort to imprint them on his mind, Palin did not notice the shadow that fell across the table.

"Something to drink, sir squire?" an ironic voice asked. Palin opened his eyes with a start and saw the dark-haired barmaid smiling down at him.

"Oh—another white wine, please," he requested, finger caught in his spellbook as he closed the soft white cover.

"Coming right up. Is that a spellbook?" the woman asked curiously.

"Yes," Palin answered, staring a little. What else could it be?

"I've never met a real wizard before, just stage magicians," she told him.

"I probably wouldn't be here either, but I'm accompanying my brothers on their journey," Palin explained awkwardly, trying to make it sound less like the milk-run that it was.

"Two warriors and a wizard in the family: an unusual combination.”

"I suppose you might say it’s a family tradition. My father was a formidable warrior in his youth, and my uncle..." 

"Your uncle?" the woman prompted gently, her dark eyes curious.

"My uncle was a great wizard. He's been dead since before I was born," the young mage sighed. He removed his finger from inside his spellbook and tenderly smoothed both of his long, dexterous hands over the white cover.

"I'm sorry," the woman said with more genuine sympathy than Palin had expected.

"I never knew him, of course, but I wish I could. No one else I know really understands how I feel about the magic. But sometimes..." Palin paused again, thinking darkly of the only-perhaps-illusory Raistlin of his Test. He finished darkly, "Sometimes I think he's better off dead."

The woman drew in a sharp breath.

"I'm sorry," Palin added quickly. "It's very complicated."

"It must be," she said, and left.

The mage chided himself for his unguarded tongue, thinking he'd lost his chance to question the barmaid about other possible thefts. He wondered furiously how he was going to explain this to Tanin. "By the Abyss," he cursed softly. It seemed that Raistlin was doomed to haunt his every day.

He was therefore quite surprised when the girl returned only a minute later with a full glass.

"White wine for the White mage," she said, and set the glass down on the table with a flourish. "I'm Mallory," she added.

"Palin," the young sorcerer returned as he picked up the glass.

"Where are you from, Palin?" Mallory asked.

"Abanasinia," he said vaguely.

"Of course. I should have recognised the accent. You're from the north, yes?"

"You have a good ear."

"Not really. We get a lot of merchants passing through Sweetwater. You learn to recognize them all."

"This does seem a well-off area." Palin exaggerated only a little, seeing a chance to learn more.

"We do well enough.”

"People must be upset," Palin added.

Mallory frowned. "Upset about being well off?"

"No, about the thefts," the mage said.

"Oh, that. So you’ve heard. I guessed it would get out eventually, but most of us have been trying to keep it to ourselves."

"How long has it been happening?"

"About two weeks now." Mallory's voice dropped to a whisper. "Things just started to vanish, as if into nothingness. Not just small things, but big things. Furniture out of houses, equipment, and..."

"And?" Palin prompted.

"The tool shed on the main lane disappeared one night. Right out of the ground. There's nothing left but a hole."

Palin shook his head with astonishment; this was more serious than he'd expected.

"For myself, I suspected magic," the woman concluded. She fell silent and stared at the White Robe expectantly.

Palin leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Had his whole kender theory just been disproven? Was this actually the work of another magic user? What about the scrap of tie-dyed cloth he'd found? Mere coincidence?

"It could be magic," Palin said slowly.

"I knew it!" Mallory exclaimed. "I was telling everyone it was magic, and none of them wanted to believe it."

"Even after the tool shed disappeared?" the mage asked dubiously.

Mallory shrugged. "This is Solamnia. We don't believe in magic, even when we see it happening right in front of our eyes."

Unfortunately, that seemed all too likely. Even in these more peaceful and tolerant times, the old fears and prejudices still lurked just below the surface of civilisation.

"Can you take me to where this tool shed was?" Palin asked. "I should be able to tell you if magic was involved, if it wasn't cast too long ago."

"It was two days ago, and I can take you tomorrow morning. I won't be working then."

"What about tonight?" Palin insisted.

The woman looked uneasy. "It's quite dark already."

Palin caressed the Staff of Magius. "I bring my own light, and every moment that passes means a greater chance of any magical residue disappearing completely."

"Well, if you really think so..."

"I do," the mage said.

"I suppose I can take you in an hour, then, after my shift ends."

Palin smiled earnestly. "Thank you."

Mallory blushed and smiled back. “Stay right here. I’ll meet you as soon as I’m done.”

Almost as soon as Mallory had left the table, Tanin and Sturm rushed in to take her place, crowding Palin uncomfortably in their eagerness to question him. The youngest brother slipped free from his warm corner, preferring to stand rather than disappear under his brothers’ shadows.

"This could be serious," Tanin said once Palin had related the barmaid’s story. "Another renegade mage. Big business, little brother."

Unreasonably irritated by his eldest brother’s sanctimonious tone, Palin carefully folded his hands into his wide sleeves and prayed to Solinari for patience. "Not necessarily a renegade. There's no Tower law stating that mages aren't allowed to steal. The perpetrator could be a mischievous Red Robe, a Black Robe, or even a White Robe performing some kind of experiment."

"Some experiment," Sturm grunted.

"All I'm saying if that we don't have much information. Hopefully I'll be able to get something from the shed, but after two days..."

"It doesn't look good?" Tanin asked.

The wizard slowly shook his head. "I've only recently take the Test," he reminded his brothers. “There is much that is still beyond my ability.”

"But you're one of the youngest ever to take the Test!" Sturm exclaimed.

"Exactly. I'm still very young, and I'm learning on my own. If I had a master..." Palin stopped, knowing that to dwell on his frustrations would take him to a dark place. "It doesn't matter. No White Robe would ever take me as apprentice." An ironic chuckle escaped him before he could reconsider. "In fact, the only offer I've ever had was from Dalamar."

"The dark elf?" Tanin leaped from his chair, aghast.

"I shouldn't say 'offer'," Palin amended, though he found himself guiltily enjoying his brothers' horror. "He said that he regretted that I chose the White Robes, because he would have enjoyed teaching me."

"Thank Paladine that will never happen!" Sturm was fervent.

Palin fixed his eyes on the polished wooden floor. "But it certainly would have solved my problem."

Tanin frowned. "Don't say that, little brother. Some solutions come at too high a cost."

"I know that," Palin retorted, his temper finally slipping from his tenuous grasp. "I'm not about to run off and don the Black Robes. I have enough people looking askance at me already. Don't you start, too!"

"I'm not starting anything!" Tanin leaned in, scowling.  

"Hey, hey," Sturm, ever the peace-maker, interrupted. "Let's not start arguing now. We have a genuine mystery to solve, remember?"

He stepped between Palin and Tanin, breaking the line of their fierce eye contact. After a tense second, Tanin blithely waved away the confrontation and fell to pacing, while Palin resumed his seat and turned to the mystery of his staff, staring into the crystal and thinking of another set of eyes that might have done the same.

"This is incredible!" Tanin exclaimed. "The whole thing just vanished? Did it happen at night?"

Mallory grinned. "This road is just as busy after dark as it is during the day. The street was full when it disappeared."

Palin knelt down to examine the ground. The shed was quite unlike what he'd expected. Rather than a simple structure sitting loosely on top of the dirt, the small building had foundations and a cellar, which now lay exposed to the cool evening air.

"I'm going inside," the mage announced, and clambered down before anyone could protest. Though Solinari was more than half full, pink with the bloody fingernail of Lunitari shining next to him, it was darker inside the hole and Palin couldn't see much. "Shirak," he whispered. The Staff of Magius cast a pale, eerie light. Bugs crawled on the rough stone wall of the cellar and a rack adorned with a few empty glass bottles stood abandoned of the north side.

"Anything down there?" Sturm called.

"No," answered Palin thoughtfully. "I'm going to cast my spell now."

"Got it!"

The mage dipped his fingers into one of the pouches at his waist and drew out a small piece of glass. Closing his eyes, Palin slowly chanted the words to a spell of magic perception, feeling the incantation burning away from his memory as he dropped the piece of glass to the ground.

"You see anything?" Tanin shouted impatiently.

"I haven't looked yet," Palin huffed.

"Sorry."

The young wizard opened his eyes, gasped, and snapped them shut again.

"Is something wrong?" Tanin asked, worry in his voice.

"Not exactly wrong." Palin slowly opened his eyes again, taking in the blazing light that emanated from the cellar walls.

"What is it?" Tanin demanded.

Palin said nothing, but approached one of the walls and cautiously lay down one hand. The stones were cool, and he sensed nothing, just as he'd sensed nothing in the stalls. Curious. Very curious.

"Palin! What's going on down there?"

"I'm not certain," Palin called. "But whatever it is, it's not to be ignored."

Awkwardly, he clambered back up the cellar wall, hoisting his long, slim back to street level as the spell of seeing faded from his vision.

"Did you see any magic?" Mallory asked eagerly.

"I saw a great deal of magic," Palin said quietly. "But I didn't feel any."

"What do you mean?"

"There is more to being magi than wearing robes, or even casting spells," Palin explained in a troubled whisper. "If you were to attempt to read my spellbook, or that of any other wizard, you'd see nothing but gibberish. Only one born with the soul of a mage, with the true connection to the magic, can read magic words, and only a true mage can sense the presence of magic. Here in this hole, I saw magic, but I didn't feel any."

"What does that mean?" The barmaid folder her arms impatiently. "There wasn't a spell cast there?"

"Impossible. I saw the spell energy," Palin said.

"So what does it mean?" Tanin echoed the woman. "And why do you need the spell if you can sense the magic?"

Palin grimaced helplessly. "I need the spell because many things are of a magical nature, and not always because another mage was casting. The spell allows me to confirm that recent energy was expended. I just don't know what it means. I can't make an effective judgement by examining this spot alone. Mallory, you said that some of the larger equipment went missing. Could you take me to where they were tomorrow?"

"Of course. Why not tonight? You have your staff to light the way."

"I wish it were that simple, but I must memorise the spell again. Once it's been used, it can't be reused until it's learned again."

"Is it the same with every spell?" Mallory asked, surprise written across her face.

Palin nodded disconsolately as the group started back to the inn, his brothers walking slightly ahead. "It is the curse of the magi."

"I always wondered why your kind don't use their power to control the rest of us," Mallory said thoughtfully. "That must have something to do with it."

Palin frowned. "Not every wizard wishes to rule."

"No, but there have been terrible ones who have tried."

"I suppose," Palin said shortly, and picked up the pace to walk next to his brothers.

The next morning found Palin crammed between his two very large, very loud brothers, sharing the narrow bed of the single room and struggling to feel his extremities. By tossing, pulling, and turning, he at last succeeded in rolling over Tanin, who continued to exude mighty snores.  

With no little exasperation, Palin briskly dressed and collected his staff before heading downstairs to the commons. He passed through the front door and into the street, where his eyes were immediately dazzled by the early morning sunlight. Despite his discomfort, the mage relished the thought of getting some real investigating done without the 'helpful' presence of his brothers, or the hovering, curious barmaid.

Palin's robes wafted across the cobblestones, the scrape of the long, thick cloth barely audible over the shouts, scents, and movements of both people and animals, and the mage let the chaos sweep him along towards the main thoroughfare. Standing in the town square, he cast out his senses and murmured the arcane words of a spell that would reveal to him the work of another sorcerer.

Light pulsed behind Palin’s closed eyelids, and he released a soft, private cry of pain and ecstasy. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes to see streaks of power painted across a multitude of objects. Magic was everywhere, as if the remnants of countless incantations were bleeding out of the town itself.

There must be another mage here, Palin thought, but what wizard would so recklessly abuse his power?

A large. pulsing stain of light caught the young White Robe’s eye. The remnants of a spell lay scattered next to a merchant tent emblazoned with the slogan Nanny's Tunics and Weaves. The mage crossed the road and ducked inside, where he saw a number of small, knitted and woven goods: hats, scarves, gloves, and bags, but no larger items of clothing.

Playing a hunch, Palin cleared his throat, calling attention to himself. A small, bent old woman in a bright red frock turned from arranging the goods. She squinted at the wizard with disapproval.

"Yes?" A direwolf would have been more welcoming. 

"Excuse me. Your sign says that you have tunics, but I don't see any here. Do you have any left for sale?"

The old woman's eyes narrowed with inimical force. "Think you're funny, do you?"

"Sorry?" the mage asked helplessly.

"Coming here asking as if there any for sale! The nerve of you magicians! You're probably the one that magicked my tent away!"

"I'm sorry; I don't know anything about it. Did you have another tent?"

"Yes, I had another tent, until it disappeared right out from under my nose. Don't play innocent with me."

"I really had nothing to do with it. When did it go missing?"

"This morning when I was setting up. Right out from under my nose!" She snapped her fingers, right under Palin’s own nose. He took a cautious step backwards, but was too pleased by the new information to be offended.

"You saw it happen?"

Some of the old woman’s ire deflated. "Didn't exactly see it, no, but it had to be magic. I came into this tent for no more than five minutes, and when I went back out the other was gone. Don't tell me someone carried it off by hand!"

"It does seem unlikely," Palin agreed. "Perhaps I could help, though. If I could inspect the area where the other tent stood?"

"Go right ahead. You won't find anything." Pointedly, the crone turned her back on him.

Palin hurried outside to the empty space where the second tent had been and crouched down on the ground. The theft had happened this morning. He was much closer now. If only there was something here that—aha! Palin clasped a small piece of metal, a key, glittering copper-bright in the morning sun. Could it have been left behind by the thief?

Standing, Palin began the trek back to the inn, examining the key as he walked. It was long and slim, with two teeth. Somewhat distinctive; few keys were made of copper. If only he could-

"Oof!" The breath was knocked completely from the mage as a tremendous weight landed on his back, throwing him down to the ground. "Get off of me!" Palin wheezed, smelling sweat and steel and assuming the weight was a person. "Name of the Abyss!"

"Palin!" The voice of his middle brother exclaimed breathlessly. "You were about to walk in front of a cart."

The mage checked himself for injuries as his brother helped him to his feet. Once standing, Palin regarded the busy thoroughfare in front of him with wide eyes. Distracted as he had been by the key, he had indeed been wandering blind across the road, with every chance of being run down by heedless horses and mage-hating townsfolk.

"Are you all right?" Sturm was pale with fright, his eyes wide.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Palin snarled, furious with himself and taking it out on his sibling. Clenching his fists at his side, he noticed immediately that both hands were both empty. The Staff of Magius lay on the ground next to him, and he snatched it up, but-

"The key!" Palin gasped.

"What key?" Sturm wrinkled his brow with puzzlement.

"The one I had in my hand! Copper with two teeth. Look for it; it's important."

Not waiting for his brother's response, the mage began searching. That glint on the road? Could that be there? He watched as carts went rattling by, and waited for a gap in the crowd, clenching his fists rhythmically with anxiety.

Just as he was about to rush out into traffic, Sturm's voice stopped him. "Is this it?"

Palin whirled around and saw the key lying innocently on his brother's huge hand.

"Yes!" The mage gasped, snatching the small piece of metal.

"You're welcome," Sturm said, smiling.

Palin blushed with shame. "Thank you," he murmured. "This could be the, er, key to this whole mystery. I found it at the site of another disappearance. If we find out where it came from, what it's supposed to unlock, we might find the thief."

"How are we supposed to find that out?" Sturm asked. "It could be for any door, drawer, or cupboard in town."

Palin shook his head with fond exasperation. "Not if the thief is a visitor to the town. Then it could only be for certain things: the key to a room at an inn, or a box at the treasury, perhaps. If it doesn't fit, then it might only be trinket someone dropped. But I'm hoping..."

"I see what you mean," Sturm said. "It's the only real lead we have."

Palin and Sturm went back to the inn to collect Tanin. After a brief struggle to eject the elder Majere from bed, they descended into the commons for breakfast. The barmaid Mallory was on duty again, but she appeared less than pleased to see them. 

"You said you wanted me to help you this morning!" Mallory's dark eyes regarded Palin with the sort of expression usually reserved for errant gully dwarves.

"I did—I did want you to," Palin stuttered. "I just thought I'd take a look around myself first."

"Well, then you obviously don't need me now,” she scoffed. With a glare of scorn and a tug on her apron, she turned her back to him and returned to work without taking their order. Sturm waved a frantic hand at another server, but the staff appeared to have closed ranks, acting as if a spell of invisibility had been cast over the large warrior. 

Palin looked to his brothers for help but found none, as Tanin, less distracted by breakfast, appeared to be stifling laughter. 

"I don't understand," the mage pleaded. "She's acting like I insulted her.”

"That’s because you did,” Tanin said.

"How?" Palin could rarely remember being so confused.

"She likes you," Tanin said gently.

"You said that before. What does that have to do with anything?”

"We mean she like likes you, little brother," Sturm repeated. He had apparently resigned himself to no breakfast, for he stopped waving for service.

Palin felt his cheeks turn a dark red. "You mean..."

"Exactly," Tanin confirmed. "Just like we said before. And now she thinks you rejected her."

"But...but that's absurd! I never said anything that indicated interest in the first place!" Palin spoke a little too loudly and winced when, from across the room, he heard Mallory slam down a breakfast tray.

"Doesn't matter," Tanin said. "Now you've rejected her. We probably won't get much help from that end anymore, unless you apologize."

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

Sturm shook his head. "You may be brilliant, little brother, but you're not very clever."

Palin turned red with shame and fury and bolted up the stairs to their room. There he tossed the Staff of Magius onto the unmade bed and threw himself down next to it, feeling lost. Life was so much easier when he only had to deal with the magic.

A few moments later the door creaked open, and Palin heard his brothers clamber inside, sounding a bit less than usual like an army of drunken dwarves.

"Hey, Palin," Sturm began awkwardly, sitting down on the bed and rolling both younger brother and magical staff towards his sudden weight. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Palin grimaced and shook his head against the covers. "It's all right. It's my fault. Sometimes I just don’t understand people."

"I know what you mean," Sturm said with a little grin. "I don't understand you either sometimes. But I still love you."

Palin smiled wryly and sat up, pushing his auburn hair back from his face. "I still love you, too."

Sturm threw an arm around Palin and clenched him to his side. "Knuckle sandwich!" he exclaimed, catching the unsuspecting mage's head and rubbing an affectionate, rough hand over his scalp.

Palin screamed and struggled to no avail, and soon Tanin was jumping into the fray, holding down the youngest Majere for a cheerful beating. The mage endured it before eventually managing to touch his staff and whisper, "Shirak."

Light flooded the room, painfully bright behind the still-drawn curtains, permitting Palin to weasel out of his brothers' grip. The two warriors laughed and collapsed back on the bed.

"I win!" Palin announced triumphantly.

"Sure, little brother," Tanin agreed too readily, laughing again.

Palin shook his head with pleasant exhaustion and let it be. He sat back down on the bed. "All right, we have another clue." Quickly, he explained the key to Tanin.

"Are you certain you don't want to apologise to the barmaid?" Tanin asked dryly when his brother was finished.

Palin pushed at the older man's armoured shoulder. "It won't be that hard; the town's not too big."

"This is a lot more than I expected when we rode into this little spit of a place," Sturm said.

"We got a lot more than we bargained for them we had a drink with a flashy dwarf, too," Tanin reminded the other warrior.

"Ah, that's the life of the adventurer!" Sturm sighed lustily.

Palin shook his head with exasperation and stood back up. "Well, we're having an adventure right now, so let's get going."

"Adventure!" Tanin snorted with enough force to remind Palin of his parents' old stories of Flint Fireforge and his horse 'allergy.' "We've had our horses stolen!"

"By a strange magical force," Palin retorted.

The two red-headed warriors exchanged one of those strange glances that made them look even more like the twins they often seemed to be, but shuffled to their feet without comment. Palin's mood dipped again as he was reminded that magic unsettled his brothers far more than it intrigued them.

"First we go to the clerk and ask if the key belongs to a door in this inn," the mage said, doing his best to stay focused. "That will narrow down our search right from the start."

"And if the thief is here, heads are going to roll," Sturm growled, flexing his arms and pounding his right fist into his open left palm.

Tanin sighed. "If the thief is a mage, we won't be able to do a thing. Guess it's up to you now, little brother."

“They probably aren’t here," Palin said. "We're not so common that someone wouldn’t have said another wizard is at the inn. Unless they’re not wearing their robes, of course."

Most mages wore their robes in these times of peace, but older sorcerers who still remembered when exposing yourself as a member of the three orders had endangered your safety might still travel incognito.

“Let’s not invent any more problems for ourselves,” Tanin grumbled.

Gathering their effects, all three brothers headed downstairs. They rushed through the commons to avoid Mallory and went to the front desk, where the morning clerk was on duty. The man looked sleepy-eyed and bored as he absently inspected the ledger while puffing furious on a pipe. 

"Excuse me." Palin cleared his throat.

"Yes?" the clerk asked. His voice was a wet mumble through the pipe stem. 

"I found this key outside and I was wondering if it might belong to any of the rooms here." Palin plucked the key from his largest pouch, in which he kept the least volatile of his magical components. He displayed the object at a safe distance, worried that the man might try to take it.

The clerk looked at it without much interest. "Copper. No. Doesn't come from here."

"Thank you," Palin said politely, replacing the key in his pouch. The clerk, still chewing on his pipestem, had turned back to the books before the mage even finished speaking.

"Is there another inn in town?" Palin asked.

The clerk didn't bother looking up this time. "Sure. The Unicorn Tail. Other side of town. Nasty place."

"How so?"

"Cheap and filthy."

Palin thanked him; the man might have been a bit rude, but at least he hadn’t required a bribe. The mage slipped into his place between his two larger brothers and let them lead him back out into the daylight, where all three drew a deep breath of fresh air.

"Speaking of nasty places," Sturm grumbled. "All I can smell inside there is pipe smoke."

"Watch out you don't get hit by another wagon, little brother," Tanin warned with a grin.

Palin shot a betrayed glare at Sturm, who grinned sheepishly.

“Let’s get some breakfast and then track down this filthy place, eh? What’d he call it again?” Sturm asked. “The Unicorn’s Ass?”

“The Unicorn’s Tail,” Palin snapped. He knew he was being baited, but he just couldn’t help himself.

“Nah, I definitely heard him say The Unicorn’s Ass. Or was that The Filthy Ass?”

“Sturm!”

Arriving the Unicorn Tail, the three brothers Majere were forced to admit that, whatever the shortcomings of their current lodgings, the second inn did indeed appear far less welcoming.

"Fancy naming this place after a unicorn," Palin mused, warily eyeing the dilapidated structure.

Tanin snorted his agreement. "Somewhere on Krynn there is a very insulted unicorn."

“No wonder the guy at the bridge didn’t ask you which inn to contact you at,” Sturm said, staring at the beaten façade of the Unicorn Tail with awe.

“That or he just took our money and never intended to contact us at all,” Tanin grumbled.

“Or that.”

Unconsciously, all three brothers drew into a rough battle formation before wading in through the cracked front door, a move that proved quite sensible once they were inside and a bottle went hurdling unceremoniously toward them. The brothers ducked and the glass sailed past them, shattering against the door as stentorian voices filled the air with rage. At least ten men were brawling in the centre of the cramped barroom. Fists were flying and, as the brothers watched, one of the men lifted a chair and smashed the heavy wood over the back of another man.

"I'll ask the barman!" Palin screamed over the tumult.

"We're with you!" Tanin shouted back, flanking the mage at his left as Sturm wordlessly fell into position at the right. Palin crept along the bar floor battle, trying not to draw attention to himself.

"Wadda ye want?" the barman growled when they at last stood in front of him.

"Do you recognize this key?" Palin shouted, holding it aloft.

"Whisky?" the barman shouted back.

"No! Do you recognize this key?" Palin repeated.

The huge man stared at the wizard belligerently, steadily chewing on a wad of tobacco.

"Three whiskys!" Tanin ordered sternly.

"Again?" Palin hissed.

"Shh, little brother," Tanin hushed him. Palin shot the other man a furious glare, barely noticing when three glasses of bright golden liquid were slammed down in front of them.

“The key?” Sturm prompted while prominently flexing his biceps.

"Don't know it,” the barman grunted.

"It's not from any of the rooms here?" Palin insisted.

"I said I don't recognise it.”

"But-" Tanin and Sturm quietly turned their brother away from the bar, catching their glasses of whisky as they moved. Two massive arms went up into the air and the bright liquor disappeared down twin throats, followed by twin sighs of satisfaction.

"You going to drink that?" Sturm asked Palin, pointing to the last remaining glass.

The young mage gave the whisky a disdainful frown and tersely shook his head. He said nothing when Sturm downed the final glass.

"Thanks!" Tanin threw two coins across the bar before steering his grimly silent younger brother around the ongoing melee.

"Well, that was pointless!" Palin snapped once they had emerged into the sunlight.

"I don't know about that. I got two drinks out it," Sturm said brightly before letting out a loud burp.

Palin tossed him an expression of disgust and began briskly walking in no particular direction.

The two warriors hurried to catch up with him. "So, what now?" Tanin asked.

Palin stopped and sighed, running a hand through his hair. He grimaced when he felt how dirty and oily it was. "I need a bath," he muttered.

"There's probably a tub back at our inn," Sturm volunteered.

"Probably," Tanin agreed before Palin could respond. "But right now we need to find the town treasury. If the key doesn't belong to them, then we'll regroup at the inn. Sound good?"

The visit to the treasury proved as fruitless as their trip to the shady bar. With no next target planned, Palin was almost pleased to abandon the quest. He’d become increasingly distracted by his lank hair and the ripe smell inside his robes, which only remained white due to the minor cleaning spell he cast upon them at the beginning of every morning.

Finding a tub had been easy enough once they had returned to inn, and the mage had happily called first dibs on the water. Having paid for an hour’s use, he sank luxuriously into the steaming bathtub, sighing as the heat saturated his limbs. If there was one thing he missed about home, it was cleanliness.

The room was silent outside of the rasp of his delighted scrubbing. The ceiling was low and there were no windows; Palin was all alone with the large tub. The only thing missing, he thought, were some bubbles. While he didn’t have a bubble spell prepared, he thought that he might be able to achieve a similar effect by submerging the large yellow cake of soap and gently casting a control winds spell under the water. Even if it didn’t work, Palin considered, it would still be an enjoyable experiment that he could makes notes about in his spellbook.

The mage recited the words to the spell along with the correct gestures, focusing on the visualization of the air compacting below the submerged bar of soap. A rush of delight travelled down Palin’s spine as the spell took form, and then he released the energy into the water. Immediately, the soap began spinning as if caught in a whirlpool. Palin narrowed his focus and formed a tight cone of air, which drew some of the soap down into the water. The air and water filled the air with soap suds, just as Palin had anticipated, but without the glycerin used to make bubbles chemically, the soap suds died away rather quickly. He was able to keep the process going so long as the wind spell continued, but when the energy faded the bubbles, too, rapidly disappeared.

“Oh, well,” Palin muttered.

His whimsical experiment concluded, he sank down into the soapy water to wash his hair, drawing in a deep breath just before the placid surface closed over his mouth, nose, and eyes. Squinting, he stared up through the glassy barrier. He imagined the gently rippling liquid as a portal to the surface of Solinari itself. Redolent with mystic might, the shining white moon would open its arms to embrace him, but only once he'd passed through dangers as subtle and inexplicable as water itself….

A splash sounded in the bathroom as Palin broke the surface, gasping for air with one arm stretched forward as if to physically capture the moon in his grasp.

"Oh, hello!" a bright voice chirped. "I hope I didn't interrupt you."

Palin looked around to see a typically brightly-clad kender skip forward to examine the bath fixtures.

"These are awfully nice," the kender pronounced solemnly. "I should protect them or someone might steal them."

"Someone," Palin echoed, baffled and ironic. Where had this kender come from?

Then, to his horror and astonishment, the kender in question began to chant. The piping voice seemed suddenly deep and ominous. Power filled the air and a golden glow surrounded the faucet and tap, intensifying and then fading away. Palin blinked at the black little holes that now occupied the space where the fixtures used to be.

"There!" the kender sounded satisfied. "Now no one will steal them."

The wizard was tempted to point out that no one could because the kender had already stolen them, but he refrained. There was no arguing with kender-logic. Besides, he had more pressing issues to deal with, like how had a kender cast a spell?

"Where did you learn to do that?" Palin asked casually. Perhaps the other would simply tell him; kender loved stories.

"Learn to do what?" the kender asked. "Nilligan Stormcloud, by the way," he said, marching over to hold out a small hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance!"

Awkwardly leaning out of the tub, while covering his unmentionables with a limp film of failed soap-bubbles, Palin shook the kender’s hand with his own dripping fingers.

"Palin Majere," he said automatically.

The kender gasped. "Majere? Any relation to Raistlin the Archmage?"

Palin flushed furiously. "I'm his nephew."

Nilligan narrowed his eyes and considered Palin in a most unkender-like fashion. "His nephew? And you're a mage?"

"Of the White Robes," Palin answered more than a little defensively.

Stormcloud (a most unusual kender name, Palin thought) wandered over to the white robes in question and began shamelessly riffling through them, quickly extracting a long string of pouches.

"Don't touch those," Palin ordered. "Those are my spell components."

"And you just left them where anyone can take them?” Nilligan demanded, aghast. Already his hands were inside the first pouch. "Hmm, good cobweb," he muttered.

"I'm in the bath," Palin said, exasperated.

"So you are," Nilligan agreed.

"So, no one is likely to just wander by and take them," the young mage snapped.

"I did," Nilligan pointed out.

"Yes, and how did you do that? Kender can't do magic!"

"Kender!" the kender gasped. "Where?" He looked around, clutching Palin's pouches to his chest. "Horrible creatures! Can't abide them!"

Palin gaped, completely baffled. Was this kender mad? Or…

Another idea began tickling Palin's brain, but he had no time to explore it, as he saw the kender absently putting objects into his own pouches and pockets. Panicked, the wizard scrambled for a towel and stumbled out of his interrupted bath.

"No one is going to steal my spell components," he explained with exaggerated patience, relieving Nilligan of the items he had already secreted away.

"Are you sure?" the other asked dubiously. "Maybe I should just-"

"No, thank you," Palin interrupted softly. "Now, where did you say you came from? Kenderhome, was it?"

"Of course not! I'm from Nordmaar, by way of Northern Ergoth, most recently."

"Nordmaar. Unusual for a kender."

"Has the kender come back?" Nilligan exclaimed. "Sneaky creatures, and they'll steal the towel right off you. You should get dressed."

Palin eyed his small companion speculatively before pulling on his white underrobe. Too late, he detected the rush of displaced air, and when the cloth cleared his head, the kender was gone.

Predictably, Tanin wasn't thrilled to hear that the most likely culprit of the horse theft had already come and gone. His two brothers impatiently waited out his disgruntled complaints, delivered at a volume high enough that the people in the next room started banging on the wall.

At this point, Palin saw fit to interrupt his brother's ire. "I still think there's a wizard involved in this. And I still think we need to find out where this key came from."

"But we've already searched both inns and the treasury! Where else could it belong?" Sturm asked.

"The town hall?" Palin suggested. "It's the only public place we've yet to see. And maybe if we find where the key came from, the wizard or the kender will come to us."

"What makes you so certain there's a wizard involved?" Sturm asked.

"The kender appeared and disappeared magically. An ordinary kender could not do that alone."

"Then maybe this is no ordinary kender," Sturm suggested.

Palin nodded slowly. "Maybe."

"What is it, little brother?" asked Tanin. The two furious red spots had faded from his cheeks, and his voice was calm. "You have an idea, don't you?"

Palin hesitated. "Maybe. But I'm not certain. I'd rather not say for now. And it doesn't make any difference at the moment."

"If you're sure…."

"I'll tell you soon," Palin promised.

They took back to the streets, heading for the town hall. It turned out to be an unexpectedly sprawling building that included a small library. Palin was more than a little tempted to go inside and spend a pleasant afternoon amidst the stacks. His yearning must have been obvious, for his brothers quickly steered him past the books and toward the clerk sitting in the main hall.

"Excuse me,” Tanin said.  "Do you know where this key might have come from?"

The middle-aged woman smiled at the key held in the warrior’s outstretched hand. "Of course. That comes from one of our safe boxes."

"Of course!" Tanin laughed, quickly catching on. "I knew that, but I just don't know which box it belongs to. A friend of mine gave the key to me. I'm supposed to pick up his gear."

"Here, let's see," the clerk muttered, pulling out a ledger. "Name?" she asked.

"Name?" Tanin echoed.

"Your friend's name," the clerk said slowly, as if to a dull-witted person.

"Nilligan Stormcloud," Palin blurted out. "That's our friend's name."

She didn't seem to notice his near-panic, but ran one thin finger down the ledger. "Stormcloud; yes, it's here. Come with me.”

The clerk led them to a short hallway lined with metal strong boxes, each fitted with a lock whose hole looked a good match to the key in Tanin's hand.

"This is it." She pointed to a box somewhere in the middle before leaving them there. 

"Well, we've found it," Sturm said. "Let's open 'er up."

"Here, Palin," Tanin said. "You do it."

Palin took the key and slipped it into the lock. The small door swung innocuously open, letting in the light at almost the same moment that the mage released a gusty sigh.

"I was right," he whispered.

"Right about what?" Tanin asked.

Slowly, Palin dragged a pile of cloth from the box, shaking it out to reveal a voluminous set of scarlet robes. "Right about this."

"I don't get it," Sturm said. "If there's a wizard here, why would he keep his robes in this box?"

"Because he isn't wearing them anymore. The kender is the wizard."

"A kender wizard!" Tanin exclaimed. "But those robes are far too large."

Palin grimaced. "Yes, now. He wasn't always a kender. If I'm right, then the wizard is a victim of a polymorph spell. He's been physically and mentally transformed into a kender. I suspected it when he came to visit me. He didn't seem to admit, or realise, that he was a kender. He could do magic, and he didn't have a kender name or a kender place of origin. It all fits with what's been happening in this town as well.

"Kender, like dwarves and gnomes, aren't allowed to become mages because they were created out of the chaos of the Greygem. The effects of their spellcasting can be completely unpredictable. Even the Dewar, the dark dwarves who have been known to perform magic, never move past an intermediate level as mages due to these unpredictable effects. But what we have here is a fully developed mage with all of the powers of a wizard who taken his Test and been allowed to move on to higher study—in the body and mind of a kender."

"So that's why you couldn't feel the magic where those spells were cast," Sturm said slowly. "Because of the unpredictable effects."

"Fortunately—though unfortunately for us—his new kender brain is urging this wizard to steal. But if he were to cast more dangerous magics…." Palin trailed off.

"Who knows what might happen," Tanin finished, grim-faced. "Well, then you'll just have to change him back."

Palin emitted a brief bark of laughter. "I can't. That's beyond my power. We have to find the wizard that did it and force him to reverse it. But if what I suspect is true, that's going to be difficult."

A light went on in Tanin's eyes. "You think he did it to himself."

"Precisely.  Some kind of accident, no doubt. But forcing a kender to concentrate enough to cast a spell of such magnitude will not only be difficult, but dangerous as well."

“And how do we even get this kender to come back so we can force him to do anything at all?” Sturm asked.

Two sets of bright green eyes turned questioningly towards Palin, who felt both flattered and mortified by their trust in his expertise.

“I don’t know.” The words emerged in a helpless mumble as Palin was overcome by a wave of self-loathing. The Staff of Magius, still clutched in his fist, mocked him with the knowledge that his genius uncle would certainly have solved this mystery far more quickly than Palin had, and furthermore would have been effortlessly capable of concocting a solution for catching the errant wizard. 

It was all too easy for Palin to imagine Raistlin's scorn, were he there to witness his nephew's ineptitude. 

But to Tanin's credit, the elder Majere brother retained his composure and merely reached out to pat his younger brother on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out. Come on, let’s go get some lunch while we work on a strategy.”

The ease with which Tanin expressed his confidence in the young mage was breathtaking, and Palin’s slumped shoulders firmed again as he remembered that Raistlin, too, had relied on his brother. The first twenty-five years of the legendary mage's life had been spent almost entirely in the company of his twin. They had travelled together, sold their skills together, and together they had become heroes. Raistlin had not struck out on his own until he was twenty-five years old, and even then he had re-united with Caramon a mere three years later, on a quest that had determined the fate not only of the Majere family, but the future of Krynn itself. 

There was no shame on Palin that he relied on his own brothers in the same way. Suddenly, solving the problem of the kender wizard didn’t seem quite so daunting after all.

They would do it together. 

As they stepped out of the town hall, Palin heard Tanin and Sturm draw deep breaths of fresh air and knew that his brothers felt more at ease in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace than among books and old records. As for Palin, the mage was still thinking longingly of the library inside and considering how he might sneak back later for a closer look, when his stomach gave a distressingly loud rumble. He blushed and did his best to ignore it, hoping that his brothers would too.

He might have known better, for Sturm laughed at once. “Sounds like I’m not the only one who’s starving, little brother! I think I smell some roast meat from up the road. Let’s go see.”

The middle brother started down the stairs of the hall at once, followed by Tanin. Palin sighed, casting one last, longing glance at the library before falling in line.

The busy marketplace had no shortage of food merchants, and Palin quickly located a stall selling cups of tea and large slices of fresh bread, while Sturm chased down the roasted meat. Tanin rounded out their meal by grabbing a few whole fruits from another stall, and then all three brothers found a place on the village green to sit. All that was missing was a picnic blanket, Palin thought, but the smooth, dry expanse of summer grasses served almost as well.

“Here, try these apples,” Tanin said, pushing one at Palin.

“Have some lamb!” Sturm enthused. He tossed a seared cube of meat into Palin’s mouth just as he opened it to protest his lack of interest. But the lamb was perfect, charcoaled and soft, and the mage chewed happily as he settled in to watch the other people on the green. Most of them were human, although here and there he spotted a gnome like the one at the stable, and even a hill dwarf. The community must be generally tolerant, he thought, of other races, if not of mages.

He continued his scanning, wondering if he might see anything else, but gave a start as his gaze fell upon the barmaid Mallory, similarly enjoying her lunch on the green. As if she sensed his regard, she looked up to meet his eyes.

“Oh no,” Palin muttered.

“What is it?” Sturm asked through a mouth full of meat and bread.

“Incoming,” Tanin warned, nodding towards the barmaid, who was already on her feet and walking briskly towards them.

“Oops,” Sturm said, half-serious and half-laughing. “Looks like your girlfriend wants to talk to you, Palin.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Palin was beset by panic, imagining another awkward confrontation with the woman who may or may not be romantically interested in him. He was not, he knew, interested in her. Certainly she was pretty, but there was no future in a relationship between an itinerant mage and a local woman, nor was Palin the kind of man to pursue purely physical gratification.

Mallory was halfway across the green already. In a sudden, confused rush, the words to a spell of misdirection tumbled from Palin’s mouth, while his hands formed the somatic component. He held his breath, unsure if his impulsive cast would take root, but let out the air in a sudden rush of relief when he saw Mallory searching the green with a confused air. Her eyes sought him out but could not find him. She stood in the same spot for a minute, as if she knew that something was wrong, before returning to her lunch.

“Woah, little brother, that was creepy,” Sturm muttered.

“Yeah, don’t go all Black Robe on us after all,” Tanin said, only half jesting.

Palin flushed and looked down at the grass. “I just didn’t know what else to do. Come on, let’s get going before the spell wears off.”

All three brothers quickly gathered the remains of their lunch. They had just begun to ease their way through the crowd when a rush of displaced air sounded a 'pop' in the ears of all three brothers. Turning, they saw the bright eyes and pointy ears of the long-sought kender.

“Why, hello there! Nilligan Stormcloud, at your service!” The kender held out a thin hand, immediately avoided by Tanin and Sturm, who hid their own hands as if worried that the kender might steal the appendages right off their respective arms.

“How rude,” the kender scoffed.

“Now, you listen here,” Tanin blustered. “We want our horses back and we want them now!”

“Horses?” The kender turned in dizzy circles, searching for the animals in question. “Haven’t seen any, sorry.”

“I think you were keeping them safe,” Palin said delicately. “From theft.”

Nilligan’s face lit up. “Oh, those horses! Yes, I might have them here somewhere…” He began to paw at his pouches. Palin watched with alarm as Tanin’s face turned almost as red as his hair. He put a hand on his brother’s arm, forestalling the imminent explosion.

“Just wait,” he whispered.

“Ah, horses!” Nilligan pulled a shard of mirror from one of his pouches and inspected it with pleasure.

“That isn’t a horse, you ninny!” Sturm scoffed.

“Ah, but you haven’t looked inside yet,” the kender said cunningly.

Before the brothers could parse this peculiar statement, an indignant whirlwind burst in between the kender and the humans. Distracted by Nilligan, Palin had failed to notice that his spell had run its course, and close enough to Mallory that she was able to spot him again. Jogging down the hill to chastise the mage, she had picked up speed and bumped recklessly into the Nilligan. The collision sent the mirror flying from the kender's hand, to go skidding across the ground. Palin retrieved the shining shard at once, slipping it into a pouch of his own, while Nilligan stumbled back from the barmaid.

“I knew that was you I saw—until you completely vanished!” Mallory shouted. “Did you cast a spell on me?”

“Er, uh,” Palin stammered. He glanced at his brothers and found them looking away from him, both carefully studying the townspeople.

“Well?” Mallory scoffed.

“I, uh-no?” Palin lied helplessly.

The young woman’s eyes narrowed. “Not good enough. I could have the town guard down here in a minute. They won’t take kindly to you enchanting locals. Unless you can magic yourself out of here, you’ll be in prison before you can say ‘Abracadabra.’”

“We don’t actually say that…”

“Not the point!” she snapped.

“No. I mean yes. I mean…how can I help you?”

Mallory folded her arms and studied him with narrowed eyes. “There is one thing you can do,” she said finally.

“Yes?” Palin asked eagerly. He was somewhat perturbed that she had so completely gained the advantage over him, but the last thing he needed to deal with was the town guard.

“Test me,” she said simply.

“What?” Even to Palin’s own ears, he sounded slightly dim.  

“Test me! I’ve heard there’s a test that people have to do to prove that they have a talent for magic. To tell you the truth,”—and now it was she who blushed—“I’ve always been fascinated by magic. That was why I wanted to talk to you yesterday, why I went with you to see the shack… I want to be a wizard.”

Palin stared, then cast a careful look at Tanin and Sturm, who appeared equally flummoxed. Apparently, this notion had never occurred to them, so focused had the elder brothers been on teasing Palin about his new ‘girlfriend.’

“I, um. It doesn’t actually work like that,” Palin said, regaining his wits at last. “The Test happens after a novice mage has been studying for many years. There is a test for aptitude, but even that needs at least two years of study before it can be applied. There isn’t anything I can do for you now. Except,” he added hastily, seeing her slumped shoulders and hollow expression, “I could send a letter to Wayreth on your behalf, indicating your interest in becoming a novice. How old are you?”

“Twenty-three. Am I too old?” she whispered.

Yes, Palin thought. But the yearning in Mallory’s eyes reminded him only too keenly of his own young self, who had for too many years been denied the chance to study the magic that haunted his dreams. How many unlikely people—the old, poor, ignorant and disadvantaged— might swell the numbers of their dwindling order if they were simply given a chance, he wondered. What did it matter if this woman started when she was twenty-three or ninety-three, if she had the desire? That alone was remarkable in Solamnia, where an interest in magic was usually buried under small-town prejudice and toxic propaganda.

“Not at all,” Palin said lightly, and was gratified when the despair lifted from the barmaid's face. “In fact, before I leave, I can make you a copy of my basic theory text. You can start studying that while you wait for the response from the Tower. You might have to move away from here, though, if you’re serious about becoming a novice,” he warned her.

Mallory looked at the little green and the narrow streets of the village beyond, and a secret smile tugged at her lips. “That’s all right. I think I might be too big for this town.”

At last, Palin smiled back. “You know, I think you might right.”