127066.fb2 Tales of Uncle Trapspringer - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 13

Tales of Uncle Trapspringer - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 13

Chapter 13

and Astinus of Palanthus continued…

Draaddis Vulter stood in front of the black globe, where Takhisis, Queen of Darkness raged.

"He lost them?" she demanded of the wizard. "Kaldre lost them?"

"According to my messenger, they were all caught up in the maze of gorges south of the Vingaard Mountains. Kaldre lead the band of kobolds, as you ordered, but a group of goblins attacked him. By the time he had driven off the goblins, the kender and the merchesti had escaped… if they were ever there."

"Are you saying you sent a fool in search of them?" Takhisis demanded. An illusion of spiders, hundreds of thousands formed on the walls, the floor, and the furnishings in the wizard's work room.

"My lady can see into all hearts and read all thoughts," Draaddis bowed, knowing he was giving her credit for more than she could really do, yet the flattery might appease her.

"My queen knows I would not willingly send a fool, yet circumstances can form traps for the feet of even the wisest. Who could have foreseen the presence of a band of goblins on their path or that the kender in their silliness would call both groups together and then escape in the ensuing battle? There is another problem as well. The goblins, enraged at being attacked, are following Kaldre and his kobolds. No doubt he will elude them and further trouble."

"Unbelievable! Goblins not withstanding, how could Kaldre and the kobolds have missed the kender and the merchesti?"

"It could only have been bad luck, my queen, since my messenger brought back an image to show they were traveling with a dwarf, Neidar in dress, and two Aghar, who were dressed as Neidar as well."

"What would they want with Aghar, who are even more foolish than kender?" Takhisis asked.

"I have no idea, but as you say, the foolishness of gully dwarves and kender together must deliver them into our hands. I've no doubt that Jaerume Kaldre will find the kender… and the little merchesti."

It had been Takhisis, not Draaddis, who had chosen Jaerume Kaldre and insisted that the wizard raise him from the dead and send him after the kender. She had even chosen the kobolds as the death knight's allies. The black-robed wizard just hoped she would remember it. He knew better than to remind her.

"He had better find them," she said, sending out a blast of evil frustration that threatened to crumble the walls of Draaddis' hidden workroom beneath the ruins. She calmed down but glared at the wizard with one perfect eye, enlarged by the globe.

"Are you sure you impressed upon him the urgency of his mission?" "I tried, my queen…"

"But did you try hard enough?" She paused, her eye blinked several times. "Do you even understand?" She waited but when Draaddis didn't answer she sighed.

"Draaddis, my unwilling but faithful servant, if we have one gate stone, we can get the other. They are mated as the viewing disks are mated."

"Then if we have one, we can get the other," Draaddis mused under his breath.

"Did I not tell you so?"

"If the other still exists," Draaddis spoke up. "You did say, my queen, that the infant merchesti might kill and devour the kender, eating the stone as well. Might the adult parent do the same to Orander and the one he carries?"

"Orander is dead," Takhisis said. "He must be." She realized Draaddis had no idea what she meant.

"Shortly after Orander disappeared," Takhisis continued impatiently, "a portal opened just south of Palanthus. I don't think it was used. This might have been a coincidence. Red-robed wizards are forever traveling between planes and it is not unusual for them to open paths of destruction."

Draaddis bowed his head. He too had walked on other planes, but he did not want to remind his queen of it at the moment. No one prospered from interrupting a god.

"Just so," she nodded, correctly reading his thought. "Still, I divine from the evidence that the red-robed wizard is dead, and that the adult merchesti has the stone and is trying to get into this world to find its young one."

Though his queen often scorned his mortal intelligence, Draaddis was not stupid, far from it. The god herself had expanded his mind, and he saw a flaw in her reasoning. If the gate stones were mated and the adult merchesti on the Plane of Vasmarg had used one of them, the portal would have opened near the kender who had the second stone. The little thieves were still somewhere near the southern tip of the Vingaard Mountain chain, still a long way from Palanthus. His queen's reasoning on that point was faulty, but he dared not tell her so. Instead, he would play the stupid mortal, stay with the subject as long as he dared, and hope she saw her mistake.

"The adult merchesti," Draaddis murmured. "But it couldn't get through the portal when it was open-"

"Do not attempt to appear even more stupid than you are," Takhisis snapped. "Orander opened the portal. He opened it for himself. When he used the stones, he held them no more than three feet apart and the opening formed between them."

"But if the merchesti held one of the gate stones, then the rent in the fabric between worlds would be large enough for the monster to enter our world?" Since necromancy was his primary study, he had given little thought to planes and the subtleties of portals. Like many other wizards he used portals when he needed them, but he knew just enough about them to serve his purpose.

"Is the merchesti intelligent enough to use the stone?" the wizard asked.

"In time," Takhisis replied. "Also, adult merchesti have an innate magic. It sensed the power of the stone, and when it killed Orander, I suspect it took and kept it. Their intelligence is not on the plane with humans, but while their thinking is slow, they are capable of working out problems. And remember, they have been known to open their own portals, though its rare for them to do so."

"How long would it take for the merchesti to learn to use the stone?" Draaddis was as impatient as his queen.

"Years, your lifetime, if we left it totally to the fiend on the plane of Vasmarg," Takhisis replied. "Still, it will come after its young. When Orander opened that portal, he set a course of destruction that is inevitable. If we can get the other stone, we can help the monster through to this world in time to help our cause."

"Help it through-bring that monster here?"

"Yes!" Takhisis gave a hiss of impatience and two of the jars on the shelves cracked with the power of her mood.

* * * * *

Two hundred feet above the ceiling of the work room, the old lobo wolf awoke from a terrible dream. He leaped to his feet, snarling at the evil that surrounded him. Fully awake, he saw only moonlight through the vines that covered his lair.

He wondered why he had been having such terrible dreams.