"Is he dead?" both Tas and Tanis asked.

A fairly strong throbbing met the two fingers Flint pressed to the man's wrist. "No, luckily. It must look worse than it is. Kender, go find some water," he instructed without looking up. Tasslehoff grabbed a copper pan from a hook on the wall and dashed out the door, for once without a question.

Tanis located a passably clean cloth and ripped it into strips, while Flint raised the tinker's head onto his lap and cautiously examined the wound. "He has a lump the size of a harpy egg." The man groaned and stirred when Flint gently probed the tender spot.

The man's bloodshot eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Flint's ruddy cheeks in confusion. "Don't I know you?… yes… What are you doing in my wagon?" He winced, raising a hand to the lump on his head; he shivered when he saw the blood. "Good heavens, I feel like a sausage. What happened?"

"We're hoping you can tell us that," Tanis said at his side. He handed Flint one strip of cloth and mopped at the blood on the floor with another.

"I'm not sure… wait… The last thing I remember was the ale tent. I was celebrating something… drank too much of that rot-gut…" He rubbed his temples. "That's it! I'd had a good sales day, because of… the bracelet."

"The bracelet is why we're here," cut in Flint. "Where is it?"

"Oh, yes, the kender…" Still a bit groggy, Gaesil shook his head to clear it, then groaned from the throbbing pain. "I would have given it to you on the bridge if I'd known who you were… It's right here on my wrist, for safekeeping." Gaesil groped around on his right arm, his eyes growing wide in confusion, then concern. "Why, it was right here!"

Flint's own eyes narrowed with displeasure. "Where is it?" He ran his hands up both of Gaesil's arms. "You're lying to me!"

"Wait, Flint," Tanis said softly. "He seems genuinely bewildered."

"I am! I swear to you!" Gaesil's expression changed suddenly. "I remember now! The bard! He was the one! He came in here last night. He must have hit me on the head and taken the bracelet."

"Now why would someone take a little copper bracelet like that? Surely there are more valuable things in here," Flint said, not convinced.

Gaesil looked scornful. "You think I own something more valuable than a bracelet with magical power? Look around. Everything you see is exactly what it looks like."

"What power?" Flint demanded. "That bracelet has no magical power. What are you talking about? Speak up, man!"

Gaesil struggled out of Flint's lap and sat up. "I don't know how to explain it, really. Suddenly and without warning it gets warm-almost hot-and then, instantly, you know something, like you had just remembered it. Only you never knew it before because it hasn't happened yet! It's very strange."

"You mean you hallucinate?" Tanis asked, confused.

Gaesil shook his head. "No,… well, sort of. What I mean is, it's like a memory, only you know that it's completely new. Sometimes it's like a vision, something you see in your mind. Sometimes it's long, other times it's just a single picture or thought. But whatever it is, it actually comes true shortly after you see it."

"The bracelet I made foresees the future? Bah!" Flint snorted. He rolled his eyes at such a silly notion.

"I bet it does," Tasslehoff called from the door. He had returned with the water and stopped at the entrance, listening. "Hi, Gaesil. Sorry about your head. But the same thing happened to me-seeing the future, I mean. Once I saw a spider in my pack before I even opened it. Good thing, too. And then there was that nasty little encounter with the hobgoblins…" Tas quickly went on to explain to Tanis and Flint what had happened when he wore the bracelet before meeting the tinker.

Flint still looked skeptical. "You're the last one I'd believe about such nonsense, kender."

"Wait a minute, Flint," Tanis said again, scratching his chin. "Didn't you say this woman-Selana-gave you special elements and ingredients to blend into the metal? Components you had never seen before? You said yourself she was very mysterious about the request and secretive about herself. It would explain why she paid you so handsomely."

Flint could no longer dismiss the evidence. He sat and held his head in his hands. "Now what do I do? It was bad enough when I thought I had lost an ordinary bracelet. But if this thing can do what you say it can, Selana is going to be even more upset about its loss."

"A woman, you say?" Gaesil asked. "An odd-looking woman with pale skin and incredible blue-green eyes stopped by the booth yesterday looking for you. She seemed perturbed when I told her you were gone."

"Oh, gods, that's her!" Flint moaned, tearing at the wisps of his graying hair. "I've just got to get that bracelet back before she finds me!" He whirled on Gaesil. "Did she say where she was staying? If she'd come back? Did she seem angry?"

"Never mind her," Tanis said. "How do you propose to find the bracelet when it was stolen by someone we can't begin to trace, or even identify?"

"I'm sure it was the bard," Gaesil said firmly. "And I'm afraid I brought it upon myself." Face glowing in embarrassment, the tinker recounted what he could of his conversation with the storyteller, including a description.

"How hard can it be to find someone named Delbridge Fidington?" wondered Tasslehoff.

"Near to impossible," moaned Flint, "if we don't know which direction he went. Besides, a weird name like that

must be an alias." The dwarf paced to and fro in the cramped interior, his heavy footfalls shaking the wagon and rattling the pans and tools hanging on the walls.

"I might have a vague idea what direction he went," said Gaesil. All eyes turned toward him, and he continued. "Before I mentioned the bracelet to him, he spoke to me about how hard it was finding steady work as a bard. Then he said he was headed north, looking for someplace where he didn't have to perform for low-paying 'riffraff'."

"That settles that," announced Flint. "We're heading north. And when I catch that thieving rascal, I'll rattle his head right off his shoulders."

Tanis grabbed the dwarf by the arm before he could bound through the door. "We can't just charge off like this. Do you even know where you're going or how to get there?"

"I'm going north," the dwarf blustered, "and I'll get there by putting one boot in front of the other, not by sitting here."

Tanis tried to reason with his friend. "This trip will take several days, Flint, maybe longer. We can't just charge off like this. We've been walking all night, we haven't eaten, and we have no supplies of any kind."

Flint slammed his fist into the doorjamb of the wagon. "I can't just sit idle, Tanis. This was important before, and it's doubly so now that we know there's sorcery involved." He closed his eyes and shuddered at the thought-dwarves had an innate distrust of all things magical. "Mind you," he said, looking out of the corner of his eyes, "I have a few choice words for any customer who just happens to forget to mention such things."

He set his jaw firmly, his expression resigned. "Still, I'm a man of my word. If this mysterious woman comes back and I haven't got the bracelet, her components, or even the money she advanced me, even a kender," he said with a glance toward a glowering Tasslehoff, "could see there'll be dishonor to my name. Now what do you propose I do?"

Tanis stood up, twisting his body forward slightly in the low-ceilinged wagon. "We'll go home, get a few hours' sleep, pick up food and clothing, and then start."

"No, we can't delay," the gruff dwarf said with a shake of his shaggy gray head. "I'll grant you we need supplies, but then we'll set out again immediately."

Now Tanis objected. "Flint, I'm exhausted! It's been a long night."

Flint pinched the tender flesh on Tanis's upper arm. "You've grown soft over winter," he chided his young friend. "Stay home and get your beauty sleep if you must," he said. "I'll be gone, however, before the morning sun crests the trees, with or without you."