"Hey, fellow? I don't want to be rude, but that's an odd place to make a camp."

At first Cantor thought the words to be the products of another feverish dream, an attempt to drive him still further into madness. Yet he forced his aching tongue to move and parted his blistered lips enough to articulate a reply.

"I sleep where I will! I am dwarf, master of all beyond Thorbardin!" he boldly proclaimed. At least, he tried to boldly proclaim; the dryness of his throat reduced the proud boast to little more than a prolonged croak.

"Wait. I can't understand you. Do you want something to drink?"

Cantor couldn't reply, and in fact wondered why anyone who possessed such a magical voice would have trouble understanding his own profound response. Yet before he could voice his question, he felt a warm trickle over his lips. Reflexively he swallowed, and the water sent a jolt of pure pleasure through his parched body.

"How's that? More?"

Now the dwarf could see a dim shape, a shadow outlined against the glow of the sky. Close before him, wonderful wetness dripped from the end of a waterskin. With a reflexive grab, fearful that the precious nectar would be snatched away, Cantor reached up with both hands, tearing the skin out of small fingers, thrusting the nozzle to his lips.

Water gushed into his mouth, soaking his bristling beard, causing him to choke and sputter – but still he guzzled desperately.

"Hey, don't drink it all!"

Cantor felt those small fingers touch his hands, and he growled a wet, splattering exhalation fierce enough to drive the figure of his rescuer hastily back a couple of steps.

"Well, I guess you can drink it all if you want," said that same voice, with a sigh of resignation. "Still, we might be better off saving a little for later – that is, if you want to. Well, I guess you don't."

Cantor, in any event, needed no permission. Indeed, he would have been halted by no command. When the skin was empty, he sucked on the small spout, chewing frantically, as if he would devour the very vessel itself.

"Wait! Don't wreck it!" Insistent now, the small hands came out of the darkness, seizing the drained waterskin and pulling it away.

The dwarf made an effort to resist, but his gut was taken by an abrupt spasm that wrenched him into a ball, then threatened to send all that precious water spuming back out of him. Clenching his jaws, tightening his gorge, Cantor resisted the nausea with the full strength of his will, forced the life-giving sustenance to remain in his belly. Gradually, over the course of minutes, he felt the water seep into his limbs, his brain, invigorating his thoughts, restoring some measure of acuity to his eyes, his ears, and his skin.

Finally Cantor Blacksword took note of his companion. The stranger was traveling light and alone, so far as the dwarf could see. The fellow was not as tall as – and far more slender than-a dwarf. His face had high cheekbones and was narrow and weathered, lined now by furrows of concern as the twin eyes regarded the dwarf cautiously. He had a great knot of hair tied atop his head, a sweep that extended in a long tail across his shoulder. That mane flipped gracefully as the visitor looked to the left, then the right, then back down to the dwarf.

"What are you?" Cantor Blacksword demanded, fingers instinctively inching toward the bone-handled knife concealed at his belt. His voice was still a rattling croak, but at least his tongue and lips seemed to move.

"Emilo Haversack, at your service," said the fellow, with a bow that sent the topknot of hair cascading toward the dwarf.

With a whimper, Cantor recoiled from the sudden attack, until he realized that it wasn't an attack at all. His blunt fingers firmly clasped around the knife, the Theiwar tried again. "Not who-what are you?"

"Why, I'm a traveler," said Emilo. "Like yourself, I guess-a traveler across the Plains of Dergoth. Though I must say that I've traveled to a lot of different places, and every one of them was more interesting than this. Most of them a lot more interesting."

The dwarf growled, shaking his head, sending cascades of water flinging from his bristling beard. His eyes, huge and pale by normal standards, glared balefully at his diminutive rescuer.

"Oh, you mean what, like in dwarf or human!" declared Emilo with an easy smile. "I'm a kender. And pleased to make your acquaintance."

Once again the stranger made a threatening gesture, thrusting a hand forward, palm perpendicular to the ground, fingers pointing toward the Theiwar's chest. This time Cantor was ready, and the knife came up, the black steel carving a swooshing arc through the air.

"Hey! You almost cut me!" cried the kender, whipping his fingers out of the path of the assault. "Haven't you ever shaken hands before?"

"Keep your hands away from me." Cantor's voice was a low growl, barely articulate, but apparently impressive enough to deter the menacing kender, who took a half step backward and cleverly regarded the dwarf behind a mask of hurt feelings and morose self-pity.

"Maybe I should keep all of me away from you," sniffed the long-haired traveler. "I'm beginning to think it was even a mistake to give you my water. Though I guess you would have died here if I hadn't. And anyway, I can always get more." Here the kender shivered slightly, looking nervously over his shoulder. "But I guess I'll have to go back to those caves to find it again."

"Caves?" One word from the kender's ramblings penetrated the Theiwar dwarf's lunatic mind. "There's a cave? Where?" Cantor tried to scramble to his feet, but his legs collapsed and he fell to his knees. He reached forward to seize the kender, but the little fellow skipped back, causing the dwarf's hands to clasp together in an imploring posture.

"Why, over there. In the big mountain that looks like a skull. The one they call Skullcap."

"Take me there!" Cantor screamed, lunging forward. The promise of darkness, of shade from the merciless sun, was a more enticing prospect even than the thought of more water.

"I'm not sure I want to go anywhere with you," declared the kender, his narrow chin set in a firm line. "Didn't you just try to kill me? And after I saved your life, to boot. No, I don't think-"

"Please!" the Theiwar croaked the unfamiliar word, a reflex action that achieved its purpose: For the time being, the kender stopped talking about leaving the wretched dwarf here in the middle of the plain.

For his own part, Cantor Blacksword tried to force his newly revitalized mind through some mental exercise. This was a foreign creature, more dangerous by far than the hated Hylar and Daewar of the other mountain dwarf clans. Every enraged fiber of his being, every treacherous and double-dealing experience from his past, told the Theiwar that this kender was a threat, an enemy to be defeated, one whose valuables rightfully belonged to the one who killed him.

Yet right now the greatest of those valuables was knowledge, an awareness of a place where a cave, and water, could be found. And despite the dark dwarf clan's propensity for torture, for theft and illicit acquisition, no Theiwar had ever figured out a way to pry knowledge from a corpse.

And so, for now, the kender would need to stay alive. That settled, the dwarf tried to focus on the current of prattle that seemed to issue from the kender's mouth at such an impossibly high speed.

"It was awfully nice meeting you and all, I'm sure," Emilo Haversack was saying. "But now I really must be going. Important wandering to do, you understand… have to see the coast, as a matter of fact. Do you know which way the ocean-oh, never mind! Actually, I'm sure I can find it myself."

Cantor croaked a response that he hoped was friendly.

"Anyway, I can see that you have matters of your own to keep you busy. As I said, it really has been pleasant, at least by the standards of a chance meeting during the dark of night in the middle of a desert…"