"What is it the key to?" I said. "And why did the wizard leave it here?"
"D-d-don't know," the quozzel said sullenly. "He said people would come look for it and try to take it. That's why he wanted m-m-me to look after it. You aren't supposed to take it. No one's supposed to take it b-b-but the wizard!"
"What did this wizard look like?" I asked, although I had an unpleasant feeling that I knew already.
The quozzel's description sounded a little like Antorell, but he was definitely older and he'd been wearing blue-and-gray robes instead of blue and brown. I was extremely relieved. Shiara didn't recognize the description, either, but she wasn't as relieved as I was.
"How do we know this stupid thing isn't lying?" she said. "I think we should-what's that?"
I could hear something far down the tunnel, but it echoed too much for me to be able to tell what it was. It seemed to be getting louder.
"I think something's coming," I said to Shiara; then, "You stay where you are!" to the quozzel, who had been trying to wobble a little closer to the bottom of the rock pile.
The quozzel froze again, and Shiara gave me a disgusted look. "I know something's coming, but what is it?"
I didn't answer. The noise came closer, and I saw a flickering light partway down the tunnel. I shifted position so I could watch the quozzel and still see some of the rest of the tunnel. The light got brighter, and a moment later a bunch of people came through one of the side passages. They were all short and sort of squashed looking, bigger than the elves we'd met, but considerably shorter than a normal person. Most of them were carrying picks or shovels or long, pointed iron poles, and a couple of them had torches. They seemed to be following something, but they were too far away and the light was too bad for me to be sure.
"Dwarves!" I said. They must have heard the echo, because two of them looked up and saw us. One of them shouted something, but I couldn't make out the words.
"Terrific!" Shiara muttered as they started in our direction. "What'd you have to do that for?"
"They'd have seen us anyway," I said. "I mean, we'd be sort of difficult to miss, with the key lighting up the tunnel like this. And maybe they'll help us. Dwarves do, sometimes; Mother had me study a whole lot of examples two years ago, after the prince came through looking for the glass coffin."
"I thought princes looked for glass shoes, not coffins," Shiara said.
She squinted into the dark part of the tunnel between us and the dwarves.
"They're coming this way. What's that in front of them?"
I didn't have to answer, because a second later Nightwitch came bounding out of the darkness with her tail held very high. She looked extremely proud of herself. She went straight to Shiara and started rubbing against her legs and purring.
'm glad to see you, too," Shiara said. She started to bend over and winced. "Sorry, kitten; you'll have to wait to get petted until somebody does something about this stupid arm."
Nightwitch stopped rubbing and looked up. "Mmrew?"
"Well, I said I was sorry," Shiara said. "I didn't ask to break it."
The dwarves had reached the edge of the key's glow, and the whole tunnel was lit up by their torches. It made things a lot more cheerful, as well as letting me get a good look at the dwarves. There were seven of them, five males and two females, all carrying shovels and picks. I could see the dragon in back of the dwarves, looking almost as smug as Nightwitch had.
"Look!" it said when it got close enough to talk without shouting. "I found a whole lot of dwarves!"
"I see that," I said. I bowed to the dwarves as well as I could while trying to watch the quozzel at the same time. "My name is Daystar, and that's Shiara. We're very pleased to meet you."
"They're going to dig through the part of the tunnel that came down," the dragon said.
"Hold on just a minute? one of the dwarves said. "I didn't say I'd help. Not exactly. I said I'd look at this cave-in of yours."
"Me too," said another. "Proper mess it looks."
"Not natural," said a female dwarf. She looked at Shiara and me suspiciously.
"How do you know?" Shiara said belligerently.
"We made this tunnel," still another dwarf said. "And dwarf-made tunnels don't just fall in."
"Not ever," agreed the first one.
"Of course not," I said. "The quozzel made the tunnel cave in. It was trying to stop us from getting out of the Caves of Chance."
"The quozzel?" the dragon said, looking interested. "That dessert thing is back again?"
"You can't eat it until we find out if it knows anything else," I said.
"Besides, you had plenty of lunch."
The dragon sighed. "I suppose so. All right, I'll wait."
I looked at the dwarves. "We'd be very much obliged to you if you would help us get through this, or show us a way around it, or something," I said."
"Now, why should we do that?" one of them said.
"I don't see any reason," said another.
"Lot of work for nothing," added a third.
"And I don't like dragons!" said a voice from the middle of the group.
The dragon glared, but it couldn't pick out the dwarf who'd spoken.
"Could you at least set Shiara's arm?" I asked.
One of the female dwarves started to reply, but she was cut off by a yell from Shiara. "Daystar! Behind you!"
I raised the sword and spun around just as the quozzel bunched itself together and jumped at me. It came flying through the air, and I ducked.
Something dark and purple shot out of it toward me, and I slashed at it with the sword. I got most of the purple stuff and part of the quozzel as well. I heard it shriek, and then it had landed and launched itself again, straight for the wall of the tunnel.
"I'll kill all of you!" it whistled angrily. "Key stealers! Cannibals! I'll kill you d-d-dead!"
I lunged for it, but I was too late. The quozzel hit the tunnel wall, and instead of bouncing, it vanished into the rock like water being absorbed by a sponge, only faster. An instant later a shower of rocks fell out of the roof of the tunnel, and I heard the walls creaking ominously.
"Run!" I yelled. I started to follow my own advice but saw a large rock shifting in the wall of the tunnel just above Shiara's head. I shouted again and swung the sword at it, hoping it would be deflected like the other rocks the quozzel had tried to drop on me.
The flat of the sword hit the rock, and everything seemed to slow down suddenly. There was a lot of creaking, and the top of the tunnel started to sag, as if it were trying to fall in again but couldn't quite manage it. The sword got very heavy, and then there was an angry-sounding rumble and the whole tunnel shook. The rock that had been heading for Shiara went bouncing off the opposite wall of the tunnel, and all the creaking and rumbling stopped very abruptly.
I didn't move for several seconds at least. I didn't think the quozzel would give up this easily. Then I saw a thin trickle of dark purple stuff dripping down the wall of the tunnel where the quozzel had disappeared. I watched it for a minute or two and decided that we probably didn't have to worry about the quozzel anymore. I looked at Shiara.