When the dwarf shouted thief, Ripple was still half crouched. She looked around, trying to spot the criminal as she picked up her hat. She had not realized the dwarf glared accusingly at her, but Trap saw the direction of the stall owner's attention.
"That's not nice! She's picking them up for you," he explained, but the dwarf shook his fist at Trap before racing around the far open end of the stall. The jeweler's attention was all on Ripple as he pushed by Trap and made a dash for the kender girl.
Trap leaped forward. In a flash his hoopak was in his left hand. He thrust the steel pointed end between the jeweler's feet. With his right, he grabbed Ripple's arm and jerked her away just in time to keep the dwarf from falling on her. The dwarf hit the ground with a thud and a curse.
Ripple was stunned by the accusation, and was still holding out the jewelry she had picked up when the portly customer took up the shout.
"Kender thieves, robbing honest folk," he shouted and made a grab for the two necklaces Ripple held. "Thieves! Thieves! Call the watch!" As he turned to alert the crowd, Trap saw him tuck the two necklaces inside his gold-trimmed sleeve.
"I saw what you did!" Trap yelled at the human. "You're stealing! You're a thief!"
Trap knew little about humans, but he did suspect a rich townsman would be believed before a stranger. They could flee or find themselves in the city dungeons. He gave Ripple a shove toward the narrow space between the jeweler's stall and the one beside it where iron kettles and pans were on display.
Ripple had been shocked by the accusation, but her quick wits rivaled her bother's. When the tinker tried to grab her she struck him on the head with her whippik before dashing through the narrow opening. Trap followed on her heels. He had just passed the staggering tinker's table when the man stepped into one of his own pots and fell on his own display. The table legs collapsed, throwing the kettles under the feet of two burly men who were leading the chase after the kender.
Trap and Ripple dodged out into a space between the back of the stalls, a place the shoppers seldom saw. They dodged around bundles and baskets of merchandise that waited for display room in the crowded stalls. Behind them they heard the call of "Kender thieves!" as it passed throughout the market square. As they ran they pulled their packs from their weapons and slipped their arms through the straps.
They fled down the deserted row and wriggled their way through a narrow space into the next market isle, but the alarm had traveled through the square. They had not taken two steps before a tall, bearded man grabbed Trap's arm. He let go when Ripple poked him in the stomach with the end of her whippik.
They danced down the isle, skipping away from reaching hands. They tripped two more people and swung their weapons toward the others, keeping them at bay.
At the end of the isle a dark, narrow mean street led out of the market and Ripple dashed into its relative protection. At least they could not be grabbed by reaching hands on every side. They still had a large group of irate shop-keepers and townsmen on their trail. They ran down the street, turned onto another at random and then into a narrow alley.
Trap's hope for escape sank as he saw a rickety shelter blocking the alley, but then he noticed a narrow space between it and the building on the right. Ripple, running ahead of him, had seen it too and wriggled into the space with her brother right behind her.
They slipped through to the other side and Trap was slowing his pace when he heard shouting behind him. He looked back and through the narrow crack he could see the first of their pursuers trying to stop. The momentum of the crowd behind the leaders of the chase shoved them forward, against the shabby lean-to. The rickety structure collapsed with a crash. As the kender ran on they heard the sound of humans in pain and others swearing in their anger.
Trap increased his speed again and a few steps further he saw two pair of eyes staring out of the dimness. He had not thought the alley dark enough for anyone to hide in it. As he drew even with them, he recognized two gully dwarves. As if to prove the reputation of their race, these two were so grimy their clothing, hands, and faces had blended with the dark gray stone.
One of them had been rolling a wagon wheel toward the little lean-to, but with a quick move he sent it careening in the other direction, and chased after it.
The Aghar rolling the rickety wheel was in the lead. He was taller and had darker hair. The second, smaller, thinner, and with blond hair, ran in his wake. They had turned so quickly Trap had little time to notice their features, but even in the semi darkness he could tell the smaller gully dwarf was younger than the other. Like kender, the Aghar developed facial wrinkles early in life. The smaller gully had no wrinkles.
The gully dwarves were only two paces in front of Ripple when they reached what Trap thought was a dead end, but they whirled around a corner. The gully dwarf with the wheel gave it a practiced turn to change direction and the kender followed. Behind them they could hear running feet again so they put their trust in the gully dwarves.
After a series of turns, all into alleys that became increasingly narrow, dark, and dirty, they saw what had to be the end of the chase. The dirty little gully dwarves still had one trick left. They whirled around a huge pile of rubbish and disappeared. Still trusting the gully dwarves' sense of survival-it was said that was the only sense they had, including the sense of smell-Ripple followed them.
Trap heard Ripple squeal in surprise. Her brother, following, tripped over a low stone that could have been a door step, and fell into darkness. The darkness hid a smooth, descending ramp and he tumbled down a steep, dark chute.
He rolled to a stop with something moderately soft under his legs and his mouth full of hair-he had at least found Ripple. The soft thing under his legs complained and he discovered by touch and smell that it was a gully dwarf. When he tried to sit up, he found that his left leg was caught up in the spokes of the dwarves' wagon wheel.
Far above they heard voices that echoed off the walls. The humans had followed them.
"Don't worry about them," one voice, louder than the others remarked. "They'll never get out of there, they're done for."
The four at the bottom of the strange shaft remained still until the echoing footsteps faded away. Then, after a few aborted attempts that resulted in feet in faces, elbows in stomachs, and fingers in eyes, the two kender and the two gully dwarves sorted themselves out. They discovered that their landing place had a ceiling high enough so they could stand up.
"What happen?" asked one of the gully dwarves.
"We run away," the other said.
"From what?"
"Don't know."
"You want torch?"
"Why? Got no light."
"I've got a tinderbox," Trap said.
"Who that?" one of the gully dwarves exclaimed.
"Kender, I think," the dwarf's companion offered. "Never seen one before."
"You've got a torch and I've got a light, so you can see one again," Trap suggested.
"You can see two," Ripple added. "Though why you've never seen kender before, I can't imagine."
After a considerable amount of fumbling (during which Ripple had to slap someone) fingers caught the hand Trap was holding tinderbox with and guided it to the torch. More fumbling followed before he lit what turned out to be a musty bundle of already half-burned rags around a broken mop handle. Once the first torch was lit, they were able to find a second, and light it too. The two kender and the two gully dwarves stood quietly, inspecting each other.
Trap decided his first estimate was correct. The tallest, with the beginning of facial wrinkles, was the eldest. The wrinkles were easy to see, being filled with grime. His hair was dark, probably dark brown, but overlaid with dirt that lightened it slightly. The smaller dwarf had no wrinkles, but was no less dirty. Their hair was approximately the same color, but the subtle difference of dark hair lightened by dirt and light hair darkened by dirt, led Trap and Ripple to believe that the younger dwarf was originally blond.
The gully dwarves were dressed in ragged cast-offs that had once been human clothing. Their trouser legs and sleeves had been carelessly rolled into bulky cuffs. During the run the smaller dwarf's right pants leg had unrolled and fallen down over his boot so he was walking on the bottom portion of the trouser leg.
Finished with his inspection of the Aghar, Trap considered their surroundings. They were in a passage, rock lined and arched. A few feet from where Trap stood, an empty sconce showed where one of the dwarves had found the torch.
Ripple blinked against the light and walked to the bottom of the steeply canted chute that had dumped them more than a hundred feet below street level. She tried three times to climb it, but the bottom was slick. It was marginally too wide and high for a kender or a gully dwarf to reach the sides or ceiling. They could not brace themselves to climb.
"Beans!" she said as she slid back a third time. "We'll have to find another way out."
"Could have told them," the first dwarf said.
"Me too," said the second.
"Hello," Trap was already growing tired of the dwarves conversation that excluded the kender. "I'm Trapspringer Fargo. This is my sister Ripple."
"His name Trapspringer," the taller dwarf said.
"She Ripple. She pretty," the other replied.
"Thank you. That's very nice. What's your name?" Ripple asked. The compliment had made her forget her irritation.
The larger of the two seemed to draw himself up. "Me Umpth Aglest. Me leader mighty Aglest clan."
"You have a clan?" Ripple asked. "Can they help us? Maybe they could drop a rope down the chute."
"That's a good idea," Trap nodded.
"No. Clan here," Umpth pointed at his companion. "Grod Aglest, brother. Him clan."
Trap looked around, peering up and down the passage as far as he could see in the light of the sputtering torch.
"Which way?" he asked of no one in particular. Umpth immediately pointed to the right and Grod to the left. They exchanged glances and both pointed in opposite directions. Since Ripple had not expressed an opinion, Trap set off to the left, with his sister close to his side. Behind him came the dwarves. Umpth rolled the wagon wheel. "Kender smart," Umpth observed. "Me point this way."
"Me too," Grod said.
"What is this place?" Ripple asked.
"This no This Place," Umpth answered. "No live here."
"I know you don't live here, I just thought you might know about this place."
"No This Place," Umpth said again. "Not know what place this is."
"Kender don't talk good," Grod said.
"Don't know This Place from any place," came the reply.
"Do they make any sense to you?" Ripple asked Trap. She spoke softly, not wanting to hurt the feelings of the gully dwarves.
"It's hard to tell," Trap replied. "I hear words I think I know, but they're not strung together right."
"Kender have big words, no sense," Umpth observed.
"Keep eye on him," Grod suggested. "Me watch her. She pretty." He reached out to touch the single long golden curl that had fallen over Ripple's left shoulder, but she stepped back, away from his grimy hands.
As they walked along the passage, they occasionally saw old torches in the wall sconces. Ripple inspected them, taking the first three that were at all usable. When she found more she gave Grod three to carry. They had been walking for half an hour when they found a set of steps going up about thirty feet. At the top was a door with a heavy lock.
The dwarves ascended the stairway behind them, but were having a hard time rolling the wagon wheel up the steps.
"Why did you bring that wheel?" Ripple asked, looking back at the struggling dwarves. "It's no good. Half the spokes are gone. The rim is loose too."
"Wheel magic," Umpth said. "Aglest clan magic."
"Wow! Really? Big jiggies!" Trap asked, suddenly interested. "How can a wheel be magic?"
"Belong to ancestor. All left of wagon bring Aglest clan to This Place. Ancestor magic strong."
"I've never heard of a magic wheel," Trap said, not sure he believed it, but at the first opportunity he wanted to see what the wheel would do.
"See, no sense," Grod said. "Not know This Place, not know magic, no sense."
"Don't be rude!" Trap said with a dark look over his shoulder. In his irritation he forgot his interest in the wheel.
While Ripple held the torch, Trap pulled out the set of lock picks his father had given him as a traveling present. After a few pokes and twists the lock clicked. Trap pushed the door open to the squeal of rusty hinges and a shower of crusted dirt and small stones fell way. Obviously it had not been opened for many years.
They found themselves in another passage. This one was already lit with torches, dry and swept clean, though a few cobwebs decorated the arched ceiling. The air was reasonably fresh, kept so by the burning torches, and from a distance they heard voices. Ripple put out the light she carried by the simple expedient of rolling it on the floor until the flames died. The four wanderers crept down the hall as quietly as the rolling wagon wheel would allow.
The voices became louder as the foursome reached a doorway at the end of the passage. The thick heavy door stood ajar, and Trap looked in to see a huge chamber, one unlike anything in his experience. Shelves of books in red bindings lined the wall on the far side of the chamber. At the end of the room more shelves held hundreds of glass jars containing strange and wonderful objects. Old but still colorful rugs overlapped each other on the stone floor. In the center of the room, a litter of books, scrolls, and strange paraphernalia covered four tables.
A human in red robes stood on one side of the room. He pressed his elbows tight to his sides and bent his arms so his hands, palms up, were close to his shoulders. From each palm came a pale, glowing light. He was humming a soft, even tone. The glow from his hand rose to form an arc of light above the man's head. Behind him stood what Trap thought was a child in a red robe. The girl played a lute, stroking the same note the man hummed. Their tune could get boring very quickly, so Trap thought the two humans might enjoy learning more about music.
"That's very boring," he called across the room. "If you like, I'll show you how to make-" He intended to offer his help, but he had startled the small one, who jumped and struck a sudden loud, discordant note. The man's voice rose in the same discordant note and suddenly the arc of light changed, disappeared, and a blackness deeper than velvet opened around the red-robed human. He stepped back with a cry as a hot wind, strong as a gale, blew through the hole.
The torches blew out and a variety of objects, impossible to see in the sudden darkness, were hurled about by the gale. A piece of cloth hit Trap in the face and as he jerked it away an unknown object struck him sharply on the shoulder.
"Orander!" a voice called out in fear.
"Halmarain," a man's voice called back. "Stay away from the portal!"
"A portal? What is a portal?" Trap asked the room at large. "Is it a magic door, does it lead to some interesting place?"
No one answered him, but he heard what he thought was a cry and a whimper, though he could not positively identify the sound. Suddenly the chamber filled with a roar that had nothing to do with the hot wind. Dimly, over the roar, he heard a thin scream that could have been human or kender, and he wondered if Ripple had entered the chamber.
He heard the sound of splitting wood and the thud of heavy furniture hitting the wall. Suddenly Trap was grabbed by a huge, clawed hand. His feet dragged against an opening as he was pulled through some unseen door. It seemed to be the meeting place of the gale, where the winds were blowing in both directions.