“The gnomes will come, surely,” muttered Barda. “To jeer at us, if for no other reason. For what is the point of a joke no one laughs at? That will be our chance, for if they can get in, we can certainly get out.”
Jasmine nodded. “We must be ready for them. We must have a plan. But when will they come? And how? If only we knew!”
“If we were at home, we could dream them,” said a small voice behind them.
They all turned. They had almost forgotten about Prin. She crouched in a corner, her eyes enormous with fear, her paws clasped tightly in front of her.
“If we were at home with my tribe, we could drink the spring water, and remember the gnomes, and dream of them, wherever they are,” she repeated softly. “We have seen them. Seen their faces …” Her voice trailed away and she began shivering all over. She heard Lief exclaim, and covered her face in shame.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I have never been in walls before. I do not like it.”
Filli chattered anxiously. Jasmine moved to Prin’s side and put her arm around her. “Do not be ashamed,” she murmured. “I too fear being locked up. I fear it more than anything.”
“You are very tired, little Kin,” said Barda, with rough gentleness. “Lie down and sleep now. You can dream even without the spring water.”
“But with it, how much more useful the dreams will be!” Lief burst out. As they all glanced at him curiously he grinned and held up his water bottle. “Do you not remember? I confess that I did not, until Prin reminded me just now. We have drunk from streams ever since we left the Kin. Our bottles are still full — with water from the Dreaming Spring!”
Out of the mists of Lief’s sleep, the dream slowly came into focus. Flickering light, dancing colors, a dull murmuring, the shuffling of many feet, clinking, chinking sounds … And one huge voice, terrifyingly loud, shockingly harsh, echoing, echoing … “MORE! GIVE ME MORE!”
Lief opened his eyes fully, stared, revolted, at the nightmare before him, and staggered back to press himself against the rocky wall. I am dreaming, he reminded himself wildly. Dreaming! I am here only in spirit. It cannot see me!
But still his heart thudded and his stomach churned. Whatever he had expected when he lay down to sleep, it was not this!
He had expected to see a cavern, though not so huge. The roof of this enormous space soared, surely, to the top of the Mountain.
He had expected to see treasure, though not in such great quantities. Great, glittering mounds of gold and jewels filled the cavern from wall to wall, rising into hills and dropping into valleys like the dunes of the Shifting Sands.
He had expected to see the gnomes he had seen on the mountaintop, though he had not thought to see them crawling, scuttling, shrinking, and afraid.
But the giant mass of lumpy, oozing flesh that squatted in the center of the cavern, its wicked eyes glazed with greed, its slimy clawed feet spread carelessly over tumbled gems and heaps of gold — this was something he had not expected. Not in his wildest imaginings.
It was a vast, toadlike beast. The hidden horror of Dread Mountain.
Gnomes crawled around the giant, collecting in great glass jars the slime that dripped from its skin like thick, oily drops of sweat. They all wore gloves and kept well away from the oozing drops, handling the jars with care.
The slime must be poisonous, thought Lief. Then, with a jolt, he realized that here must be the source of the venom that made the gnomes’ arrows deadly.
As he watched, two other gnomes scuttled forward, bent under the weight of a huge golden bowl heaped high with what looked like black, glistening berries.
They knelt before the toad, heads bowed. Its long red tongue snaked out and curled in the black mass, scooping up a quarter of the contents of the bowl. As it lifted the feast to its huge mouth, scattering fragments carelessly over the gnomes and the treasure at its feet, Lief’s stomach heaved. The food was not berries, but flies. Thousands — tens of thousands — of fat, dead flies.
In moments the bowl was empty. The toad gave a rasping growl of anger. “MORE! QUICKLY!” it roared.
The two kneeling gnomes cowered, glancing at each other fearfully. “Your pardon, great Gellick,” faltered the one on the left, a wizened old man in a tattered brown jacket. “But — it may take some time to collect more from the breeding caves. The ready supplies are gone.”
“WHAT? GONE? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?” grated the toad.
The old gnome was trembling all over, but finally forced himself to speak. “It is just that you have eaten rather more today than usual, great Gellick,” he quavered. “We were not prepared. We —”
His words were choked by a shriek as the toad spat at him without warning. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony. His terrified companion, wailing in grief and terror, dropped facedown beside him, clasping him in her arms as he died.
The other gnomes watched dumbly. On some faces Lief saw guilty thankfulness, because it was the old gnome who had been attacked, not them. On other faces there was sorrow and anger. But on most there was simply dull, blank hopelessness.
“Things on Dread Mountain are not as we thought,” said Barda’s voice behind him.
Startled, Lief swung around. Barda and Jasmine were standing near him. He could see them quite clearly, though they were shadowy and their outlines seemed to waver. Jasmine, for once without Filli and Kree, who had not drunk the dreaming water, was pale with disgust and anger.
“This is a vile thing,” she muttered. “This Gellick rules the gnomes as the Wennbar ruled the Wenn in the Forests of Silence. But it is much worse. It kills not for food, but for spite alone.”
“The gem we seek must be here,” Barda said. “But how are we to find it? The cavern is piled high with precious stones.”
Lief shook his head, amazed that he could have forgotten their quest, even for a moment. But forgotten it he had. The toad Gellick had absorbed all his attention.
Now he could feel that the Belt of Deltora had warmed against his skin. The fifth gem was here, in this cavern. But where?
“We will not be in a position to find the gem at all, if we do not get out of the prison they have us in!” Jasmine whispered fiercely.
“We must wait, and listen,” Barda answered. “That is why we are here.”
They watched as the body of the old gnome was dragged away by his sobbing companion. Slowly the other gnomes went back to their work of attending to the glass jars that collected the toad’s slime. As each jar was filled, two gnomes carried it between them through a door near to where the companions were standing.
“Once we were a proud people,” Lief heard one of these gnomes mutter disgustedly, as she passed. “Once we owned this treasure, and the Mountain was beautiful, fruitful and ours. Now we are slaves on a nest of thorns, farming flies for a toad.”
“DID YOU SPEAK, GLA-THON?” The harsh voice filled the cavern.
The gnome who had spoken spun around hastily. “No. No, great Gellick,” she lied. “Or, at least, if I did speak, it was only to say that the intruders — the intruders we told you about — are safely locked in the tomb-tunnel, and will not escape.”
“THEY MUST DIE!”
“Oh, they will die, my lord,” said another gnome, stepping forward and smoothing his red beard. “The simpler ones among us have been watching them, enjoying their feeble efforts to escape. But the sport has ended now for they have put out the light. By morning they will be dead through lack of air. Then we will drag them into the breeding caves, and the flies can have them.”
He beamed, bowing low. “And soon you, great Gellick, will have the flies,” he added. “It is a fine progress, is it not?”