Taywin's eye lit up in childlike glee. "So you were there! Both sides have claimed so!"

Toede shrugged and said, "For a little while I was. But what…" Toede's question was interrupted by a knock at the door, and a tall, flame-haired human who was kneeling down to peer inside.

"Is our guest awake?" said Bunniswot, looking tanner and (if possible) thinner than he did at his last meeting with Toede.

"I was just telling him the tale of the rebellion," Taywin said brightly. "He was there, as you said, at the helm of the mighty hammer-creature… What did you say its name was?"

"Jugger," said Toede, regarding Bunniswot as if the scholar had just popped out of a cake. "I was unaware you two knew each other," he said, eyes wide, adding to himself, But not horribly surprised, given that you're both a few boulders short of an avalanche.

Taywin shot a concerned look at Bunniswot. "And our other guest, is he…?"

Bunniswot sighed. "Out spreading the good word, again. I last saw him trying to win over your father's guards."

Taywin rose and stomped her small feet. "I asked him to stop doing that. Daddy will get the wrong idea about the movement, and he'll never help us. I'll go get him."

Bunniswot nodded. "Good idea, but take Miles with you." At the sound of his name, a vaguely familiar kender guard popped his head in the hut. He nodded at Taywin, then stared at Toede and smiled. It was a creepy smile,

made all the more so by the fact that every second tooth, top and bottom, was missing.

The berry-picking guard, Toede realized, and he suddenly understood the force of the blow on the back of his own head. Toede touched the lump there and smiled back venomously. Whatever else, this matter was far from over.

They locked glares for a moment, then Taywin breezed between them. She curtsied before Bunniswot, and said, "Dance upon the water lilies, Scholar Bunniswot."

Bunniswot returned the benediction. "Dance upon the water lilies, Taywin Kroninsdau."

The two kender disappeared, and Bunniswot, still hunched over, shuffled over to where Taywin had been seated and sat down, stretching his long legs.

Bunniswot managed a tired smile. "So, how are you feeling? When Miles and Taywin dragged you in, I was afraid they were too rough on you."

Toede shrugged off the concern and said levelly. "/ come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh, eh?"

Bunniswot reddened and coughed. "Ah, that," he said, gulping. "You know, I'm glad to have this time alone with you, so we can sort this out."

"It took me a quote or two to make the connection," said Toede with a smile. "Thaf s what all this lily-dancing and trusting trysts is all about, isn't it? The ogre pornography."

"Well, yes and no," said Bunniswot. "And it's ur-ogre, and erotica."

"What does 'yes and no' mean?" said Toede.

Bunniswot spelled it out. "After Renders disappeared and the gnolls were defeated, I had trouble getting my… er, findings, published. There was neither funding nor support, and frankly, the material did have a… risque… nature to it."

"So…?"

"So I had it published myself," said Bunniswot. "Initial release of twenty handwritten copies. Second release of a hundred. Working on a third now."

"I know there's something coming that I won't like," said Toede, reducing his eyes to slits. "Why not tell me now and get it over with?"

"I didn't publish it as historical documentation. No one in academia would take something like this seriously." Bunniswot smiled weakly.

"And instead…?" continued Toede. Bunniswot looked at the floor, speaking very fast. "I said it was the political and scholarly advice of one of the most misunderstood warrior-leaders of our time. The not-so-late Highmaster Toede." "What?"

"It's gotten very good reviews," put the scholar in quickly. "The Tower of High Sorcery alone has asked for three copies. We're talking about reprinting it for the libraries of Sancrist."

"You signed my name to your ogre pornography?" hissed Toede, keeping his volume down as best he could. "Well, I didn't call it pornography," replied Bunniswot with a 'what-kind-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for' tone to his voice.

Toede felt his face grow red. "What. Did. You. Call. It?" He bit off each word.

"Political and social allegory, concentrating on both the relationship between the ruler and the ruled, and the relationships between rulers and other rulers," said Bunniswot.

"So all the talk about sex is…?" Toede felt a mounting pressure building behind his eyes.

"Not about sex at all," Bunniswot said, nodding, "unless you have a filthy mind. And since no one admits to having a filthy mind, it's okay."

"Wonderful," muttered Toede. "And I take it our kender poetess has read the book."

"She can quote it chapter and verse," said Bunniswot.

"If s the text book for the Allied Rebellion."

Toede did not know if he was supposed to laugh or ay. "So I'm credited with a book I didn't write, that is about sex although it isn't, and that is being used by a rebellion that has yet to rebel?"

Bunniswot tilted his head slightly, as if considering Toede's argument. "Good summary," he said at length.

Toede pressed his hands to his temples. "Just bloody wonderful. Okay, what else can go wrong?"

"We're back!" said Taywin, bouncing into the hut.

She was followed by a large, angry-looking human dressed in black. Toede's eyes widened. His shirt was open to reveal a large T that had been carved into his chest.

The assassin from the Jetties towered over Toede. Even hunched over, his shoulders grazed the ceiling of the hut. The assassin's eyes glowed like hot embers with barely contained emotion. At his hip was a great sword in a rune-carved scabbard.

Toede felt his throat go dry, his tongue turn to sandpaper. Toede choked out, "Dance on the lilies, warrior."

The assassin let out a great cry, and Toede backed up. As it was, he was pressed flat against the wall of the hut when the human drew his sword and collapsed to his knees, presenting it, hilt-first, to the hobgoblin.

"My life is yours, O sage leader!" said the warrior, his eyes focused on Toede's toes.

Toede pried himself from the side of the wall with as much decorum as he could muster. He took the sword (the same one, he noted, that had previously been used in combat against Groag) from the warrior's hands, and strongly considered ramming it right back into the human's T-inscribed chest. However, as this might lead to further complications with the kender, (particularly the guard with the club), he instead gently touched the warrior with it on the shoulder, his mind scrambling for something suitable to say for the occasion.

"Your life is yours to live," mumbled Toede. "Arise, good Sir… In all the previous excitement I never learned your name?"

"Rogate, most sage leader," muttered the warrior, eyes bent to the floor.

"Arise, Sir Rogate," said Toede. "You have pledged your quest with my own." Whatever the heck that might be, he added to himself.

Rogate tottered to his feet, swaying slightly, and declaimed to the others, "I serve the mighty Toede, and have been accepted and forgiven! Behold, the first of the Toedaic Knights!"

Bunniswot and Taywin applauded politely. Miles, the kender guard, grimaced and left to return to his post.

"Now, if everyone will please sit down," said Toede. "Perhaps someone would like to tell me exactly what is going on."

Rogate drew himself up to his full height, or at least as much height as the hut permitted. "But you know all, most puissant and sage of wonders!"

Toede motioned for Rogate to sit, saying softly, "I come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh." He made a mental note to get a few more quotes under his belt.