"A full grown human shorter than us?" Ripple was astonished. Halmarain was stouter, but shorter than a twelve-year-old kender.
"Some humans don't grow very much. We're rare, perhaps one in a hundred thousand."
"Big cook place," Umpth spoke up.
"Wizards eat lot maybe," Grod suggested to his brother.
Halmarain ignored the gully dwarves, but Trap was also curious about the huge, well appointed kitchen.
"It's a wonderful place," he said. "Interesting. I liked exploring it. Does it have other rooms?" He was looking forward to exploring some of the large earthenware jars they had not had time to open.
"No, this is it. Before the cataclysm these chambers were the scullery, larder, and storage for the keep," Halmarain said, pointing toward the ceiling. The earthquakes collapsed the upper passages. The people in the keep must have thought all the underground caverns were destroyed. They never tried to dig them out."
Trap wanted to ask more questions, but the gully dwarves had emptied their bowls and were off their stools, heading for the hearth. Halmarain glanced up and threw the kender a hard, warning look. Trap hurried to head them off. He refilled their bowls and his own while he was at it. Ripple's maize pudding was delicious. It was famous in Hylo.
Halmarain continued to study as she finished her meal. She was just closing her book, ready to leave the table, when she noticed the expectant look in the kender's eyes.
"I'll do some magic for you, but afterward I'll expect you to clean the scullery and keep an eye on the merchesti and the dwarves."
Halmarain reached into the salt cellar and carefully counted out twelve grains. She scattered them on the table, waved her hands and spoke an incantation. Twelve grains enlarged, broke apart, and from each stepped a glowing little man. They appeared to be made of small blocks and those at the hips, knees, shoulders, and elbows appeared hinged as the little men began to dance around the top of the table.
The kender clapped their hands, the gully dwarves' grins nearly split their faces as they reached for the tiny cavorting figures, but their fingers passed through them and the little men kept dancing. They cavorted for nearly five minutes before disappearing.
"Now remember your promise in return," Halmarain warned and returned to the wizard's work room. The kender stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. The dwarves emptied the pot of maize pudding and Beglug ate two of the trenchers.
When the kitchen was clean, the dwarves sprawled out on the floor. Since the merchesti was shivering with cold, the kender built up the fire. He slept on the hearth and they wrapped themselves in their blankets and stretched out on the big kitchen tables.
The next day Halmarain studied her books. The kender were bored. They could not induce Halmarain to do any more magic for them, though she promised she would after she found the answers to her questions about the portal. Trap and Ripple explored their own pouches, showing each other their possessions. Somehow, Ripple had regained possession of the single gate stone. An hour later they did the same job again. Trap regained his possessions that had somehow found their way into Ripple's pouches and she took back hers.
Part of the morning passed pleasantly enough when in their third exploration of the underground caverns they found a chest pushed well back under Orander's bed.
It had not occurred to either kender that as well as a lock, a wizard might put a spell on his personal belongings. The lock was child's play for a kender, but the spell blew them across the room and singed Trap's eyebrows and the knees of his leggings. Luckily, he had been slightly to the side of the chest and escaped the worst affects of the fireball. Halmarain had closed the heavy door of the laboratory and had not heard the noise.
They spent another pleasant hour exclaiming over rings and vials and brooches. They examined small, carefully fastened pouches filled with powder, and two strange knives. They were fascinated by three golden rings. When they were finished with their explorations, Trap carefully re-locked the chest so no one could get into it and steal Orander's belongings. Neither noticed the chest was considerably emptier than it had been when they opened it, or that three rings, one of the knives, and several vials had not found their way back into the chest.
Later the same afternoon they rearranged their pouches again, this time trading back and forth, so they both had new items. Trap inspected a knife his sister gave him in return for one he had found in his belongings after they left the ship.
"This looks like one Orander has tucked away in his chest," he said, slipping it into his sheath.
"Yes, it does," she replied. "When he comes back through the portal, you should compare them. If his were magic, maybe yours is too. Gee, that would be interesting, having a magic knife."
The gully dwarves had spent the day making a new "This Place." They found an unused chamber with one collapsed wall and laid claim to it. Their first task had been to take one of the huge stone crocks from the larder and carefully chip down both sides until it fell neatly apart in two halves. Announcing they now had beds, they scavenged for anything useful to put in their new home.
By the end of the day the kender, the gully dwarves, and the little magician had finished most of the food in the larder. Beglug, who seemed to be able to chew and digest anything but had a partiality for wood, had eaten one of the tall stools and part of a table.
That evening, Ripple made another pot of her delicious maize pudding. Halmarain came to the kitchen to join them. She was still reading as she ate, but she sounded as if she were developing a stomach ache. She sighed, moaned, and groaned.
"It couldn't be the pudding," Ripple said, frowning at her brother.
"No, I've found the answer I was looking for," Halmarain said. "Not the answer I wanted-definitely not what I wanted. At least I know what we must do to get that thing back into its own world and rescue Orander… if he's still alive."
Chapter 7
"I thought you said the markesi-"
"Merchesti," Halmarain corrected Trap.
"I thought the merchesti could open the portal," he finished.
"If Orander is still alive and had both stones, he could open it. If he's not still alive-and I'm afraid he's not- then it could take the fiend years to learn how to reach our world. This monster would be growing up on Krynn."-she pointed at Beglug who sat on the floor- "The longer it stays here, the larger and more dangerous it will become. If we can't send it home before long we'll have to kill it."
"No!" Ripple objected. The merchesti was sitting at the foot of her stool. He occasionally leaned his head against her leg as if seeking the touch of another creature for reassurance.
"Stop saying that! He's not evil! You're just mean!" Trap argued. "He hasn't done anything but eat and sleep."
Across the table, Grod's eyes grew wide again.
"It will show its foul nature as it grows," the little wizard passed off the arguments as if they didn't exist. She paused and referred to the book. "But the portal won't open here. According to Alchviem, to open and then close a portal by the use of the gate stones thickens the fabric between planes. The thickening sounds as if it's some-thing like scar tissue over a healed wound."
"I know what that is, I have a scar," Ripple pushed back her sleeve to show a blemish on her arm. "One day when Soso Stepup and I were-"
"I must find a wizard powerful enough to help Orander open the portal," Halmarain said, interrupting Ripple's story. "Maybe we can rescue Orander if he's still alive."
"And Beglug can go home," Trap said. "He doesn't seem to like wandering." The kender shook his head. "I'd think he would like to see new places, but he keeps moaning. Of course maybe he just has a belly ache from all that strange stuff he keeps eating…"