Teldin's mind went blank for a second before he answered, "Muggins." It sounded like Miggins, whose form he was copying, so it would probably do.
"Ah, Muggins, excellent," said Dyffed, pleased. "You must have lived around humans a lot to have such a short name. We'll search for Muggins, then, and hope that proximity of the target to the universal locator apparatus doesn't result in a feedback loop and the subsequent breakdown of matter on an elemental level, as it did on that unfortunate spelljammer that the Salvage Committee was telling me about yesterday. Quite a shame. Not much salvage value in sawdust." With that, Dyffed poked a finger inside the open end of the box to make some hurried adjustments. The wild-haired gnome looked on with the expression of a mother finding an infant playing with a box full of her finest crystal glassware. The bureaucrat gnome yawned broadly.
It took five seconds for the gnome's words to sink into Teldin's consciousness and make sense. He didn't catch it all, but he caught enough. "Ahhhh…." he began, backing away and looking around for an excuse to leave.
"Won't take but a second!" Dyffed said, raising the box to his face and aiming the open end at Teldin. "Do cover your face in case the field unbottles itself. Very messy, but that's science for you. Can't make an omelet without killing a few chickens first."
"Wait! Don't do it!" Teldin cried, remembering only at the last moment that his voice had not been changed along with his physical form. He put up his hands to shield his face, not knowing what would happen next.
To his infinite relief, nothing happened at all. "Oh, gullion splat," muttered Dyffed. "This isn't working. I'm not getting anything at all now." He handed the box to the wild-haired gnome, who held it up to his face and peered into it in Teldin's direction. The latter gnome grunted and turned the box upside down, then sideways, then backward.
''S broke," mumbled the wild-haired gnome sadly, lowering the box and looking down at it like a child at a smashed toy.
The bureaucrat gnome yawned again, looked around, and scratched himself. "Well," he said in a rumbling bass voice, "it's about time for my budget and appropriations meeting, so if you don't mind, I'll take the development of this new invention into consideration for the next fiscal year's budget and let this year's-"
"But we need the funding!" Dyffed cried in a stricken voice. "I'm absolutely totally, completely, positively, and error-free certain that we will have the locator up and running within no more than… no more than…" He stopped as all three gnomes turned toward the hangar door in puzzlement. "I say," he finished, "what is that most bizarre sound?"
Teldin turned to look and listen, too, but he heard nothing at all. Could the gnomes naturally hear things he could not, even in his new form?
"It's the emergency siren from the ranch," said the bureaucrat gnome in mild surprise. "Now, what could possibly-"
"Uh-oh," said the wild-haired gnome.
Teldin and the other two gnomes immediately turned to look at the speaker.
The wild-haired gnome started to back away from the hangar entrance. "Hamsters," he said, with not a little concern in his voice.
"Oh, my," said the bureaucrat gnome, looking about the hangar. "Oh, my, then I suppose we'd best-"
"Yes, immediately, I would think," said Dyffed, his eyes suddenly as large and round as saucers. The gnome looked at Teldin, then hurried over to him.
"Here!" Dyffed said, thrusting the box into Teldin's small hands. "Take this to Teldin Moore immediately! I'll bring the instructions later. Don't get caught!" With that, the three gnomes ran off into the depths of the hangar, looking anxiously over their shoulders and pushing each other along as they made their escape. The last that Teldin heard of them was Dyffed's cry, "Hurry before they get here!" A distant door slammed, and silence fell.
Hamsters? The cloak had translated the gnomish word but had provided no explanation for what the word meant. Teldin had to assume a hamster was some sort of animal, and to be caught by one was obviously regarded as a terrible thing.
"Then what am I doing here?" he suddenly asked himself aloud. Clutching the box, he turned to run back for his hidden clothing. He would have to change back into his normal size and get his sword. With his cloak's powers, he could better deal with the situation.
He would have done this, except that, when he turned around, he found his way blocked. He jumped back in fright, yelled, and dropped the red box as a golden-brown, grizzly-bear-sized animal, with an impossibly big pink mouth, smelly, hot breath, and ivory incisors the size of axe blades, lunged-
And ate him.
*****
"I'm sorry," said Gaye, leaning against the infirmary door. She heard the sound of water splashing, but no reply.
"Teldin, I said I was sorry," she repeated. "I talked the gnomes out of keeping you here overnight for observation and testing, so you can say 'thank you' if you want, but if you're mad at me and you don't, I understand, because it was my fault the hamsters got loose and ate you and spit you out in the laundry pool. I didn't think they had mouths that big."
There was a pause on the other side of the door, then the sound of more water splashing. He was certainly going to be difficult about this one, she thought.
"Teldin, why don't you speak to me?" she called. "I know you're angry about being stuffed into a cheek pouch and covered with hamster spit and then thrown in the laundry pool and losing your old clothes, but you know, I don't understand how you lost your clothes to begin with. I mean, you weren't running around wearing old gnome clothes for fun, were you? That's kind of weird, you know? I didn't know you did that sort of thing, but I guess I can understand it if you said you'd been robbed at sword point and forced to change clothes with a gnome, but you haven't said that, so I have to assume-"
"Gaye!" roared Teldin. "Just shut up!"
Startled, the kender backed away from the door. "That's a fine way to talk," she mumbled. She surveyed the door for a moment. "Do you really mean that?" she called.
A few splashing sounds came from behind the door, then silence. Gaye listened carefully, thinking she could hear someone moving around in the room. "Teldin, are you okay?" she asked. There was no reply.
Maybe he slipped on some water while getting out of the tub, she thought. Maybe he's just drying off-but if he needs help, he could need it now. Do I wait or not? If I wait and he's hurt, I'll never forgive myself. He was pretty angry, and angry people don't think clearly. She eyed the door handle, then decided to risk it. She found the door unlocked (like all the infirmary doors), and threw it open.
"What?" Teldin spun around, clutching the towel with which he had been drying off. "Gaye! Gaye, get out of here!" he yelled.
Startled, the kender did exactly that. She reappeared two seconds later to close the door.
"Gaaaaye!"
She ran off again, finding a position safely down the hallway while Teldin slammed the bath door shut with a bang. She heard something dragging across the floor-probably the wash stand-and heard the object being set against the bath door. Then footsteps stomped away from the door, and there was silence again.
"Rats," she said, alone in the dimly lit hall. Well, it's my own fault, she decided. The gnomes told me about the giant space hamsters they use to power their ships, and they told me they raised the giant hamsters here, and I just had to see what a hamster was, and they looked so awfully cute in the barn that I went and let one out, and they all got out, and now the gnomes hate me and the humans hate me and even Teldin hates me. She decided she could live with everything except the last.
She was getting to like Teldin a lot; he was really mysterious. What was his big secret, anyway? It had to do with his magical cloak, but no one would tell her about it. Now he never would.
Gaye turned and walked away down the hall toward the dark, narrow staircase. She avoided a stack of short wooden curtain rods leaning against one door, though she was tempted to kick it. The gnomes had all left a while ago for some reason, so there was no one else to talk to. It was going to be a bad day.
At the top of the stairs, Gaye heard the echo of a door slamming downstairs somewhere, then heavy footsteps coming rapidly up the steps toward her. It sounded like the giff general. She hoped he wasn't angry with her, too.
She was halfway down the upper flight, feeling rotten about everything, when the other stair-climber reached the landing. She barely looked up as she came down.
"If you're looking for Teldin," she mumbled, "he's not in a good mood."
The dark figure stopped short with a quick grunt. An odd and unpleasant body odor reached Gaye's nose. It was like old sweat and filth and fresh blood. She looked up. It was hard to see except for the faint light from a hall window, upstairs behind her. She could barely see the huge figure lift his right hand as he came at her. The figure was holding a long blade, and he was twice her height. He wasn't a giff.
Gaye dodged to her left as the sword slashed down and smashed into the wooden step where she had been standing, splintering the step into kindling. She instantly fled, her legs pumping as she ran back up the steps toward the dim light. Boots crashed hard and fast on the stairs behind her. She heard the attacker panting hard as he came after her. His armor scraped against the walls right behind her.
She reached the top of the steps and dived right, just as a sudden, sharp pain stabbed her left heel. Something thumped into the hall floor behind her at the same time. She lost her balance and fell, crashing into the curtain rods and knocking them down with a clatter, then got up again. Her heel hurt badly, but the pain was muted as yet. She ran down the dark hall for the room where Teldin had been taking his bath and jerked on the door handle as hard as she could.
The door wouldn't budge. She realized that Teldin had probably stuck the wash stand under the door handle on the other side, jamming it shut.
"Teldin!" she screamed, rattling the door handle. She looked back. The attacker was upon her, his head scraping the hall ceiling. The sword went up for a downward cut.
She gave up thinking. She dived forward at the giant's right side as the sword sliced down with a snap of air. Her small hands caught the hilt of the sword between the giant's huge fists and pulled it down and to the side farther than the giant had meant it to go. The giant staggered forward, off balance. The sword slammed into the floor as the assailant fell heavily on his side, the sword almost but not quite pulled out of his grasp. Gaye ran back down the hall, past him, and snatched up a wooden curtain rod before she ran back. Her heel screamed pain with every step.
"Teldin!" Gaye screamed again, gasping. The giant was already getting to his feet outside Teldin's door, the sword firmly clutched in one massive hand. With the light behind her now, Gaye could see that her attacker had a dull yellow-orange face with short tusks sticking up over its upper lip, and wore black, spike-studded armor, well oiled. His eyes were all wrong, with white pupils floating in round jet-black seas. An ogre, she thought, as the attacker's lips parted and she saw his sharklike teeth. He raised his sword again, uttering no sound, reaching her with two swift strides.
Gaye stepped aside at the last second, feeling the awful pain in her heel, and thrust the curtain rod up at the ogre's forearm as the sword came down. The ogre's blow was deflected off the stick, but the strike was still powerful enough to stagger her. Without waiting, she pushed the upper end of the rod into the path of the ogre's descending face, and it struck him in the right eye, punching in hard.
As the ogre let go of his sword, his hands clawed at his face and his mouth soundlessly opened. Gaye danced back out of the way, taking the stick with her and raising it to block the next attack. The ogre dropped to his knees and felt for the sword with one hand, the other clamped over his right eye. When he heard a door open, he lifted his sword and got to his feet to hunt for his tormentor with one good, squinting eye.