"You can kill to eat, but you don't hurt things for fun," the kender told the little merchesti.
"You'll never teach him mercy or kindness," Halmarain said.
Beglug rubbed his arm and whined, gazing up at Trap and the little wizard with a pathetic expression.
"And don't let that sad look fool you," Halmarain warned. "He's an evil fiend and will never be anything else."
"He'll learn not to hurt things for fun," Trap said, determined to civilize the little merchesti.
Trap didn't like her distrust of the little merchesti, but even worse, she was scaring Grod. The smaller gully dwarf's eyes widened every time she mentioned evil, and he was beginning to watch Beglug as if he expected the little fiend to bite the arm off one of his friends.
When they began their day's journey, Trap led. He angled north through the foothills. At dawn the sun had risen, promising a bright day, but the clouds began rolling in before they had been traveling for an hour.
Half an hour later, a bolt of lightning struck the side of the mountain. Beglug roared in delight and waved his arms. The little wizard gave a startled scream that set the ponies to sidling.
"We should find a shelter before the ponies bolt," Halmarain suggested.
Trap agreed. He wouldn't mind walking through the mountains, but like all kender he loved riding and would hate to lose his mount. He hurried ahead searching for any type of overhang that would protect them from the approaching storm.
He didn't go far. Traveling along the easiest path, he discovered a shallow cave with a low, narrow entrance. The rest of the party reached shelter just minutes before the storm broke.
The entrance was so low they had to dismount and pull the heads of their mounts down as they entered.
"Another delay," Halmarain muttered as she followed her mount into the dimness.
Further back in the cave, Grod gave Beglug a few sticks for a snack while Umpth freed the wagon wheel from its makeshift travois.
"Many feet come," Umpth called out, tugging his dark beard in distress.
The two kender and the little wizard turned to see him standing with his ear against the metal rim of the wheel.
"That gully dwarf-" Halmarain started to complain but Trap interrupted.
"Don't pick on him. He was right the last time," the kender reminded the little wizard.
Halmarain's eyes flickered and she nodded. "I suppose that loose rim could pick up and magnify vibrations," she said, providing a logical explanation for what the Aghar considered magic. "We should camouflage the entrance if we can."
Halmarain trotted to the entrance of the cave and peered out. "I don't see anyone yet," she said to Trap. "Can you cut that large bush and prop it up in front of the entrance? I'll keep the ponies quiet."
Trap dashed out into the downpour and reached for his knife, but it was not in his sheath.
"Beans! I lost it," he muttered. He rammed his hand in his pouch, seeking the other knife, the one similar to Orander's.
His finger encountered a ring and it was on his finger before he realized it. Still he had found the knife. To his surprise the knife cut the bush as easily as if the wood was warm cheese. He turned and started back for the mouth of the cave. He took one step and bounced off the face of the low cliff that had been thirty feet away.
The ring had magic again! Unfortunately it would give him problems returning to the cave.
He reluctantly slipped the ring off his finger and dropped it back into his pouch. Four hurried steps took him back to the cave entrance where he rammed the pointed end of the brush into the rain-softened ground. Halmarain had been watching from the shelter, and she gazed at him with speculation.
"What did you do out there?"
"I cut a bush." He thought she had been watching.
She opened her mouth to object when a bolt of lightning struck nearby. They heard the panicked scream of a horse and several frightened voices. She put a finger to her lips for silence.
The tiny human and the kender peered between the leaves of the bush as a mounted rider in a cloak with a cowled hood rode by. He lead a large group of kobolds. A wash of evil menace hung in the air with the rider's passing.
They continued to watch, but none of the travelers gave the brush a second look as they passed. Minutes later another bolt of lightning flashed and distance muted the frightened screams of the kobolds.
Halmarain turned away from the entrance, fear and anger fighting for dominance in her expression.
"Someone wearing a black cloak went to Deepdel looking for kender," she whispered. "That rider fitted the description, and he's on Our trail. He has to be after you."
"No! I told you! He couldn't be looking for us," Trap said. "I don't even know who he is."
"I've never seen him, and he's not someone we'd forget," Ripple added with a shiver. "There was such an evil feeling about him."
"True," the little wizard nodded. "You wouldn't forget him, and his isn't a purse you'd be likely to rifle."
"We don't-" Trap started an angry denial, but Halmarain interrupted him.
"I want to know how you took that enormous step," she demanded.
"With this ring," he said, forgetting his anger. He opened his pouch and searched in it with his fingers until he found the little golden object. He was willing, even anxious to show it to the wizard's apprentice and get her opinion.
"I guess it fell into my pouch when we looked through a chest under Orander's bed," he said. He told her about their exploration while she had been studying the wizard's books. He also related his first experience with it, when he had jumped around and confused the dwarves that had called him a thief.
"Wonderful! I wish I could have seen you whizzing about. I don't blame you for tricking them," Ripple said. "It wasn't nice of them to call you names. Even Halmarain knows we could not have taken anything from them. She had pinned our arms to our sides with a spell, though I must say I don't think that was a good thing to do at all. And anyway, we promised we wouldn't, and even then she kept us away from them."
"Apparently I didn't take precautions soon enough," the little wizard muttered.
"You did. We didn't touch anything of theirs. Now, I want to know about the ring," Trap insisted, unwilling to be sidetracked.
"Orander made the ring," Halmarain replied. "But he put an extra spell on it." She gave them a rare smile. "I have to admit not all the thieves in this world are kender. Years ago he had an apprentice with sticky fingers, so he protected his belongings by limiting their powers."
"You mean it works for a while and then quits?" Ripple asked. "Interesting. Not too much fun, though, if it quits in the middle of a step. A person could fall in a creek, or on his face or something."
Trap had been fingering other items in his pouch. If he remembered correctly… and he did. He pulled out a second ring.
"I have this one, too," he said,holding it out. "I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know what it does, except it could be the one that makes the big steps, but if it is, then I don't know what that one does," he said. He slipped the second ring on his finger. Nothing seemed to happen so he pulled it off, handed it to Halmarain and took the first one back. When he slipped it on his finger, Halmarain jumped in surprise. Ripple gasped and whirled around.
"Trap!" she shouted.
"I'm right here," the male kender said. He pointed to himself, but he couldn't see the finger that should have been aimed in his direction. "At least I think I'm here. What happened to… Wow! Great! Big jiggies! I'm invisible!" He slipped off the ring and became visible again. He inspected it. "Does it have a limiter too?" he asked.
"Probably," Halmarain said. "It will continue to work if you know the word that negates the limiting spell. I don't know it. Many of Orander's belongings have limiters."