"What sort of creatures live in ruins?" Trap asked. He turned in the saddle, looking back over his shoulder at Halmarain, and waited for an answer.
"Things you don't want to know anything about," she said, but the interested gleam in the kender's eye caused her to amend her answer. "Things I don't want to know anything about. Things that might endanger Beglug."
"Something else we don't get to see," Trap mumbled, turning back to watch the trail ahead of them. He turned in the saddle again, his eyebrows down, his voice harsh in the way of angry kender.
"We haven't had much fun on this whole trip," he said. "When we find this new wizard, I want to see some magic, and if I don't…" He let the threat lie, not sure what he would do.
"And so will Ripple," he warned.
Trap felt used and abused. They were just passing the ruins of Pey in the distance and he wanted to explore.
The little wizard had heard of Pey, knew it's location and knew that they were close. Since they had seen the dwarves on the horizon, she had insisted they travel by night except through the area near the ruins. For some reason she refused to explain to the kender, she seemed to be terrified of getting close to Pey.
They were riding through the night again.
Trap could see only one advantage to night travel; Beglug slept in the saddle and didn't torment the pack pony. The little merchesti was becoming meaner every day. Just before they broke camp he had used his newest tree limb to swat Umpth, chasing the gully dwarf around the camp.
The two kender and Grod caught the infant fiend and took his switch away, but the merchesti's squeals and squalls of frustration were so loud he could be heard for miles.
"Give it back to him," Halmarain had said with a sigh. She had used all her calming spells on him, but her magic had less and less effect on him as he grew. She was studying to relearn the spells. Before long they'd only give them a brief respite from his caterwauling.
"Why don't you just turn him into a frog or something until we reach the wizard?" Ripple asked. "We could put him in a sack and he'd be easier to manage." Since the kender girl loved the ponies, and Beglug tormented them at every opportunity, she had developed an active dislike of the merchesti.
"Because I don't know how," Halmarain muttered. "If I did, we would have had a lot less trouble on the journey."
"No can make frog?" Grod demanded.
Trap stared at the little wizard for a moment and then started to laugh. He laughed until he couldn't stand up and so he sat on the ground. Ripple stared at him in confusion, but she soon started to giggle, infected by his mood.
"What's the matter with you two?" Halmarain demanded. "Along comes a wizard and sits on a log," Trap gasped.
Ripple instantly caught on. "And threatens to turn us all into frogs," she added.
Grod laughed and started to clap.
"I don't need any of that," Halmarain shouted.
"She huffs and she puffs and fills us with fear," Trap giggled.
"But her spells and her threats never appear, Ripple capped him, with a sly look at the tiny wizard.
"Grod make one!" the gully dwarf shouted at the ken-der, jumping up and down with excitement. When he had their attention, he puffed himself up with a huge in-drawn breath and clasped his hands behind his back.
"No more have to wash!" he said and waited expectantly.
"By golly and gosh," Trap obligingly did the capping.
"Are you finished?" Halmarain asked quietly. She had just lost her major weapon against the dirt on the gully dwarves.
Since he still did not know their destination, Trap had begun the next leg of their journey on an angle that would take them past the last mountains in the next chain, approximately twenty five miles to the east.
"No, we should go directly east from Pey," the little wizard told him when she realized they were on a north-easterly course. We want to reach the mountains about ten miles south of Castle Kurst. Then the dwarf necklace will come in handy."
"You mean we're nearly there?" Trap could hardly believe it. "We'll find this new wizard and see some magic?" The kender referred to the magic-user at the end of the trail as the "new" one since finding him was their newest goal.
"I don't promise you anything," Halmarain said quietly. "Remember, I don't know Chalmis Rosterig. All I'm sure of is that he is a wizard of great power."
"Hey! Great! Now we know his name and we'll soon be there."
Having a name seemed to make the wizard more real. Trap urged his pony forward, anxious to reach their destination. The wizard's chambers would be full of all sorts of things to see and touch, and he might be able to talk Chalmis Rosterig into showing them some fun magic.
They rode through the night and dawn found them in the middle of the hill country between the ruins of Pey and the westernmost spur of the Khalkist Mountains. They made camp and slept through most of the day, but during the late afternoon they were awakened by the scream of one of the ponies. As usual, Trap woke rising, his hoopak in his hand. His first thought was that the dwarves or the kobolds might be attacking. He was stunned and disgusted to see Beglug squatting on the ground, just out of reach of Halmarain's mount. It was on the ground, its legs thrashing. Even as the kender stared, the kicks weakened and the animal died. The little merchesti had bitten out its throat.
"Oh! No! No, no." Ripple rushed forward, stopped a few feet away and sobbed. The kender girl loved the ponies and begrudged no work in rubbing them down, combing their manes and tails and brushing their hides.
"Beglug! Bad! Bad!" Trap yelled at the little creature, still too shocked to say more.
Halmarain rushed over, muttered a spell, and the evil glow in the merchesti's eyes died out. He hummed his calm little sounds and stood. When Halmarain told him to, he wandered back to the fire to curl up and sleep again.
"I told you that monster was evil," the little wizard said, staring at her dead pony.
"No good make Lava Belly sleep," Umpth said, staring at the dead animal. "Him eat pony now, no bad two days maybe."
"He will not eat that animal!" Halmarain snapped. "The last thing we need is for him to develop a taste for our mounts."
"No make good magic," Grod said as he too stared at the carcass. "Too heavy. No can carry."
They cooked a quick meal, loaded the surviving animals, and broke camp. Halmarain rode the pack animal and they divided the supplies between them, loading a few on the backs of her mount, and those ridden by the Aghar and the kender.
At dawn of the second day, they found a deep gully where they would not be seen and made camp. Not two miles ahead was the foot of the first mountain in the range.
"When we finish eating can we go visit the wizard?" Ripple asked. She was as happy as her brother to have the boring trip behind them.
"That would be nice," the little wizard agreed with a despondent sigh.
"Gee! You sound sad. I thought you'd be happy to be here," Trap said, surprised that she seemed disappointed.
"We still have to search miles of mountains for a hidden entrance to an abandoned dwarf city-one abandoned a thousand years ago," Halmarain said. "That will be the hardest part of our journey."
"Hard? No, it'll be fun. I like looking for things," Ripple said. "How do we recognize it when we find it?"
"I don't know."
The kender stared at Halmarain. Even the gully dwarves paused, forgetting to eat as they gazed at the wizard.
"Wizard no smart," Umpth said.
"Done said that," Grod agreed.
"Just shut up!" Halmarain jumped up and stomped away from the campsite, her tiny feet making poofs of dust in the dry bed of the gully.
"She's tired," Ripple said. "When a person is very tired, everything seems harder than it really is. But I don't see the difficulty. We won't have any trouble finding the entrance."
"How do that?" Umpth asked.
"You're dwarves-not Hylar, Neidar, Daewar, and certainly not Daergar, but dwarves. You should be able to find the entrance to this dwarf city."
"The Aghar don't live underground," Trap reminded her. "They don't know anything about mines and caverns."
"Aglest Clan use wheel," Umpth announced. "Wheel know everything."
"Know more than human wizard," Grod said, turning so it was apparent he was speaking to Umpth.
"Can find village," Umpth agreed. He scuttled around to sit facing Grod and held up one finger, then a second. "Wheel know someone comes, two times." He held up two more fingers, became confused. He stared at the three fingers, confused because one limiting trait of their race was their inability to count above two. He solved his problem by tucking one finger under his grubby thumb.
"Wheel find Trap," Grod said, holding up a finger.
Halmarain's fit of temper had not taken her far from camp and as she returned she heard the last of the conversation.
"That's enough!" Halmarain shouted at the dwarves, remembered loud noises could attract unwanted attention, then spoke more softly. "If that wheel is so powerful, I'll let it find the entrance to the dwarf caverns."
"Does this place have a name?" Trap asked.
"Digondamaar, it means 'the golden halls' in the Neidar tongue."
"Neidar?" Trap looked up.
"Really? That's interesting. Tell us about it," Ripple suggested. "Perhaps knowing more could help us locate the entrance."
"This city isn't Hylar. The Neidar started the mines and the city more than a thousand years ago. For some reason they abandoned it," Halmarain said, then paused to sigh before continuing. "How much they built, how deep they delved, and why they left are secrets known only to the dwarves. Chalmis Rosterig lives in the underground chambers near one of the entrances-the west entrance, according to rumor. That's all I know."
"That's really not much," Trap said with a hint of censure. "And you didn't make much a tale of it. Still, it's a start. You stay in camp with Beglug and rest. We'll go searching for the entrance. If two kender and two gully dwarves can't find the entrance, it isn't there."
Halmarain appeared undecided. She glanced around the camp, which was well hidden in the gully, and then at the little fiend, who had curled up in the early morning sunshine and was asleep.
"I know. I'll get you some water from the stream and you can have some more tea," Ripple said quickly. "You can sit and relax and let us explor-search."
"Take care, you don't know what sort of creatures you might find in those mountains," Halmarain said.
Trap considered the wizard's warning and checked his pouches to see if he had any more stones for his hoopak pouch. His exploring fingers discovered something he could not identify by feel and he drew it out.
"I had forgotten about this," he said, inspecting the small, gray-green glass disk. He moved it to another pouch to make sure he didn't make a mistake and use it as a slinging stone.
Astinus of Palanthus is rumored to serve the god Zivityn or perhaps Gilean, the god of knowledge. No one has ever known the truth. Nevertheless, he shook his head as he described the satisfaction in the Dark Queen's voice…
"At last!" Takhisis said, her words a sigh of relief. Then she gave a snort of disgust. "They're in some gully, and I can't see the surrounding area.
"Look at those striations of red and gray," Draaddis Vulter pointed. "There's only one place on Krynn where that geological anomaly occurs. They're east of here… in the hill country. They passed right by us!"
"At least that stupid kender hasn't lost the viewing disk."
As they watched, the kender slipped the viewing disk back into his pouch and a small dark cloud hovered over its mate that lay on the mirror in Draaddis' laboratory.
"I will have them, Draaddis." The Dark Queen's voice was full of menace. "You will not employ any more fools. No death knights, no goblins, no bugbears, no kobolds… and if you value your life, no more mistakes."
The chamber seemed to fill with an evil vapor again. From it came the grasping arms on which long-fingered hands reached out with even longer claws. Draaddis felt the ripping of his skin, the flesh being torn from his face and limbs. No matter that the wizard knew his torture was illusion, the pain in his mind was real. He screamed and fell, begging his senses for the oblivion of unconsciousness or death. Since the wounds were mere illusions, he received neither.
Dimly, between his own screams, he could hear the little winged rat shrieking. It staggered out from behind a stack of books and flapped it's wings pathetically, as if it had lost the ability to fly.
When the illusion faded, and the pain with it, the rat continued to whimper. Draaddis was minutes getting his breath, calming his senses, and regaining his feet.
"Do you understand, Vulter? I will have the kender; I will have that stone."
"I shall begin my search at once," Draaddis bowed to his queen. He did not tell her that the hills between Pey and the westernmost range of the Khalkist Mountains were riddled with deep gullies, all looking just alike.
Two hundred feet above the laboratory the old wolf had leaped from his bed of leaves and streaked out into the night. He kept his left hind leg raised, because some creature with claws had reached from a cloud and had torn his flesh.
He raced around the ruins and as he turned the corner, he passed two squirrels who were squabbling over a place to bury some early ripening nuts. Bowled over, the squirrels rolled in the high grass as the wolf went by.
He ran for half a mile before he realized he had begun to use the injured leg. He slowed to a trot and then a walk and stopped. The place seemed safe and he wanted to clean the wound before it began to hurt again. He inspected his fur and found no mark. What was happening to him?