Though Otik Sandahl had only been proprietor of the Inn of the Last Home for about fifteen years, the reputation of his place had already spread throughout Abanasinia. Travelers made a point of stopping over in Solace in order to sample the specially brewed ale and spicy fried potatoes Otik served. The innkeeper himself was another inducement. His round eyes and equally round belly bespoke an enjoyment of life he worked hard to share with his tavern's clientele.

The current renown of the Inn of the Last Home was the more remarkable because of its reputation under the previous owners. These were a married couple, hill dwarves, whose sour dispositions seemed to taint everything from the ale they served to the generally inhospitable atmosphere

travelers felt the second they entered the inn. The smells from the kitchen were enough to offend a gully dwarf-well, almost.

Maybe the root of it was their dissatisfaction with having to live quite so far above ground or the unending irritation about their clan's exile from the mountains. Whatever the cause, their marriage degenerated into cold stares and public bickering, even as the inn itself crumbled into disrepute.

One day the husband got up earlier than the rest of Solace, packed a meager bag of belongings, and left town. Nobody missed him, least of all his wife, who sold the inn to the next traveler on the road-Otik Sandahl-for "a kender half-penny," according to local wags. Where Otik was coming from, or going, was the subject of some speculation, but whatever his plans had been, Otik had reached that stage in life where he wanted to travel less and to settle down more. In any case, it was a happy happenstance. Otik had found his natural calling.

His first task was to give the inn a thorough cleaning and lovingly polish the vallenwood floors and furniture to perfection. Then he set to work in the kitchen. Of his spicy fried potatoes Otik would say only that the recipe had two basic ingredients: potatoes and spices. "If it don't fill you up, you don't have to pay up," Otik was fond of saying. Soon no one doubted his word.

Not quite as famous, but every bit as tasty, were other dishes he had learned to prepare on his travels-braised trout cheeks, duck liver pudding, buck stew, and cranberry surprise.

His traveling days were also reflected in the decor of the inn's common room. He decorated the walls with various mementoes, curios, and anything else that had caught his fancy during that time. And he kept expanding the collection. Despite protests from his customers, each year Otik insisted on closing up the inn for one month-not really trusting anyone else to run it in the proper manner-and indulging what remained of his wanderlust.

Otik was determined to see as much of Krynn as he could in his time and he journeyed far afield. A rough map behind the long bar, paid in barter for a meal by a kender, showed X-marks for all the places he had visited. Otik always returned with one or two souvenirs. Once it was a fearsome minotaur battle axe. Another time it was a finely embroidered scarf, elfish in origin.

On his first day back, Otik would produce these curios with a great flourish for his regulars and anyone else who happened to be stopping over at the inn. Then he proudly added the objects to his decor, fussing over exactly the right way to display them, with plenty of advice from his patrons.

By now, the Inn of the Last Home was a veritable museum of objects from the disparate Krynnish cultures. This collection was one of the reasons Kitiara both liked and disliked hanging around the inn. She would stare at the different objects and daydream about whence they came, the things they had witnessed. But eventually those daydreams always led Kit back to the fact that she was stuck in Solace, far from any excitement. At that thought she might bury her head in her hands and groan in frustration, stalking out of the place, not to be seen around the premises for a week or so.

But Kitiara always returned. Too young to have a taste for Otik's ale and too cash-pinched to afford his hearty fare, she rarely bought much, just sat alone at a table and sipped one glass of pear juice for hours at a time. Her favorite spot was in a corner near the front door so that she could have first look at the travelers who climbed the long, winding stairs up to the treetop inn. One of them might have news of her father. One of them might be able to alleviate the tedium of Solace.

Kitiara had stayed in the treetop community far longer than she had expected when she first returned from her adventures with Ursa and Stumptown-more than two years. She had waited in vain for a likely group of travelers to latch on to in order to leave again, ones that looked to be on their way to something more interesting than the next village.

At first, Otik hadn't really liked having such a young girl hanging about, but he grew to tolerate Kitiara-the main reason being he had given up trying to keep her out. If he escorted Kit out the front door, she edged in the back. If he watched both doors, somehow she slipped in through one of the windows. When she seemed gone for good and he had forgotten all about her, he would turn around and there she would be, sitting near a window, paying him not the least attention.

Truth to tell, Kitiara was not bad for business. In the right mood she could play jackdaw with the best of them. She was a patient listener to stories of the road, and every inn needs its good listeners as well as its good storytellers.

And Otik was at heart a gentle soul. He didn't begrudge Kitiara time away from her home, which he knew was dominated by Rosamun's sickbed. When there were no other customers, Otik would even strike up a conversation with Kit. He liked to talk about the origins of his souvenirs, occasionally taking one down from the wall and letting Kit caress it. She listened avidly to Otik's little histories, gaining an education about the world that couldn't have been obtained in school. The innkeeper treated Kit kindly, just as, years later, he would treat Tika Waylan, the orphaned daughter of one of his barmaids.

It was plain to Otik that Kitiara would not be pining around his bar for long. At sixteen years of age, she was already shedding the gangliness and rough-edges of adolescence. Her face had emerged into an arresting angularity, narrowing from high cheekbones to a determined chin. The lower half of Kit's face was softened by full, rosy lips. Her dark eyes were fringed with glossy lashes whose midnight color matched the cap of black, curly hair she continued to wear in a boyish cut.

Careless of her appearance, she favored close-fitting tunics and leggings because they allowed her freedom of movement, seemingly unaware that they also showed off her natural grace and a slender figure that had begun to curve appealingly. Now, on the occasions she and Aureleen wandered through the marketplace or walkways together, appreciative stares were as likely to be directed at Kit as at her conventionally pretty friend.

Yet any man who tried to flirt with Kit met a prickly response. As far as she could tell, most men wanted much more than they gave back, and Kitiara didn't like that equation, even when it applied to her brothers-though, thank the moons, at eight years old they already seemed fairly able to take care of themselves. Raistlin's magic studies were progressing well and occupied most of his waking moments. When Caramon wasn't skipping school to practice his swordplay, he was tagging around after Gilon.

As if she had conjured him up with her thoughts, Kitiara looked out through the front door Otik had propped open on this warm afternoon and saw her high-spirited brother running up and down the walkways outside the inn with a group of friends. He and another boy began mock-jousting with two long sticks. Caramon was obviously stronger and more agile with the stick, but, laughing, he let his friend best him and threw up his hands in mock surrender. Kitiara frowned. That boy had inherited too soft a nature from Gilon.